


flashlight in the dark

by cuddlydreamsonrainydays



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Angst, Fluff, M/M, Mind Reading, Slow Burn, dan is angsty, humanity is awful, phil is literal sunshine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-12
Updated: 2017-10-27
Packaged: 2018-11-13 07:22:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 18
Words: 105,299
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11179833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cuddlydreamsonrainydays/pseuds/cuddlydreamsonrainydays
Summary: Daily, Dan is bombarded with fleets of thoughts that aren't his. They show him the vilest side of humanity. No wonder he doesn't hold his species or himself in particularly high esteem. He has accepted that there are no truly good people in the world.But then there's Phil, who just won't bow down to this rule. It's annoying, really. And Dan doesn't like it at all. Why would he?





	1. One

“Daniel, are you sure we carried up everything from the car? You really didn’t pack a lot of bags, have you even brought a coat? Are you sure you can take care of yourself?”

I dropped my small, yet considerably heavy bag on the floor and winced at the loud noise it made. Hopefully that ugly sound hadn’t been made by my laptop being smashed to pieces.

“Mum,” I sighed. Here at the top of the tall apartment building, the constant clamour in my head had been reduced to a dim white noise. For once, I had no trouble focusing on my own thoughts. “First of all, it’s July. Second of all, going to your and dad’s house literally takes me an hour at most, even without a car. I’m not going to die if I forgot one of my jackets, which I didn’t, because you made me check everything twice.”

She paused, then, her eyes going wide. I cocked my head at her, only just keeping a neutral expression on my face. At this point, I was getting annoyed. It wasn’t like she was a fucking almighty angel, I had spent enough time on my own in my life to now officially live alone.

“It’s weird,” she finally muttered. “I never thought about you not referring to our house as your home anymore.”

“Mum,” I sighed again. “You should be happy I’m moving on. I’ll be fine. Now go. Live your life. Whatever, I don’t care.”

Maybe I was being harsh, but I couldn’t find it in myself to care. I didn’t have much pity left for the woman standing in front of me with her arms crossed over her chest.

“Okay, okay.” _Potato gratin for dinner sounds good. Will John be home? Probably not._ Great, I had her distracted. Now I just needed to get her to leave. “I will be off. Won’t you hug your mother?”

I didn’t really have a choice, did I? We awkwardly wrapped our arms around each other. Then, she finally gave me one last smile. In her mind, she was already somewhere else, thoughts about her car keys and the awful London traffic flooding my head. I furrowed my eyebrows.

“Bye, Mum,” I insisted, keeping my voice as neutral as possible and gently gesturing towards the door. That made the string of rapidly passing thoughts stop. I watched as she studied my appearance yet again before finally turning to the door.

“Goodbye, Daniel.” Another ten second long eternity of awkwardly standing in the hallway and waiting for her to close the door behind her later, I was finally alone. Silence accompanied her down the stairs, until I couldn’t tell anymore as her thoughts jumbled in with the white noise of everyone’s down in the streets.

Exhausted, the first thing I did was exploit my mildly and crappily pre-furnished apartment by flopping down on the couch in the living room. The creaking noise that my weight on the presumably rusty springs provoked was alarming, but by far not alarming enough to make me get up again any time soon. I was finally alone, if only in the way you were alone in a public place with lots of indistinct, unfamiliar voices roaming around at the edge of your awareness, and I was able to think.

The best thing, and only good thing really, about being the centre of attention was that it made my mind go blissfully quiet. Not because I simply blanked out and ended up at a loss for words, although that was a frequent occurrence due to my general social anxiety and awkwardness. I didn’t have much to say at the best of times, and even less under normal circumstances.

For me, being on someone else’s mind had a different meaning than it had to most people. As cheesy and cliché it may sound, I was different. And I hated it. If my life wasn’t so boring in every other aspect and if I was a little bit more likeable, for example on the cute instead of the creepy side of the spectrum of awkwardness, I probably could be the main character of some regrettably addictive anime. I was a shitty person with below average looks. The list of reasons why I was a fail was long enough to fill a War and Peace style novel. War and Peace was really freaking long, in case the analogy went over anyone’s head there. In short, I had nothing about me that would excuse my difference, and surely nothing that would even begin to make it remotely alluring.

Contrary to common belief, being able to read the minds of everyone in your proximity, and by being able to I meant being practically forced to, was not what fairy tales were made of. Over the years of trying and failing to cope with my affliction, I had developed a love-hate relationship with silence in my mind due to a simple and yet astonishing fact: Someone’s thoughts about me where the only ones I didn’t have to listen in on, and couldn’t even listen in on if I wanted to. With this information, would people still think mind-reading was a blessing? It was far from it. To me, it was simply a curse. I had gotten all the worst aspects of it.

I knew all about the twisted minds of the people around me, and yet I never knew their opinion of myself. The only thing I got to know was when people were thinking about me, because all I’d get then was radio silence. Never knowing what they were thinking about me was torture.

My mother had given me a whole lot of radio silence today, at least thought-wise. I couldn’t exactly blame her for thinking about me. Already that she was my mother was enough of a justification. I was also currently in the process of moving out from my parents’ house.

I was nineteen, to be exact I had turned nineteen a month ago, and I was done with my parents’ shit. Not that I’d ever outrightly tell them, oh no. I had argued that everyone moved out when they were done with school. That yes, I would be fine on my own. No, I wasn’t going to live in the dorms even though yes, it would be easier. No, I wasn’t going to stay at home any longer, even though that would also be easier. That I needed space and quiet to study. They ended up caving, just like they always did. I knew it was because they didn’t care enough to argue any more.

I was glad about their lack of attention. It made it easier to hide what a fuck-up I really was. As little as I cared about my parents for various justified reasons and then various reasons that simply had to do with me being an awful person, I was still their child albeit my relatively newly acquired status of official adult person, and I didn’t want them to think of me as an awful person. They probably already did, not that I would know.

A crash resounding through the empty apartment did an effective job of distracting me before I could slip into the impending downwards spiral of self-hatred just around the corner. That was good, except there shouldn’t be anything crashing loudly in my empty apartment, where I was alone. Wearily I pulled myself from my very comfortable position halfway sunk into the old cushions. Judging by how hard it was to get up, this couch would sooner or later result in permanent spinal damage. But back to the point. Seeing how I was rarely as alone in my head as I was now, I tended to get lost easily even in my own thoughts. On my tiptoes, which probably make me look beyond ridiculous at a height of over six feet, I carefully sneaked towards the source of the noise.

A box that I had thrown lazily onto the kitchen counter earlier had toppled down; apparently its position hadn’t been as stable as I’d thought. I snorted about my own paranoia. This sound, too, turned out much more audible than I was expecting it to. Wow, I wasn’t deaf after all. Sadly, now that the first box had fallen, I couldn’t quite ignore the way others of its kind were piling up all over my kitchen anymore. At least unpacking would keep me busy.

That didn’t mean that I wasn’t absolutely ready to give up on life after the first three boxes. There were already articles of clothing scattered all over my floor, and I hadn’t undressed once, only attempted to organize my black on black variety of shirts and pants in the small wooden wardrobe. Its door creaked every time I moved it as much as a millimetre. Despite all of my struggles and the miscellaneous stains on the carpet in various spots, I found myself happy. Not yet smiles and crinkles around the eyes happy, but happy nevertheless. This was my place, my space, all my own. What did it matter that I barely knew how to pay for it, my shitty job cleaning up the trash of thousands of people visiting Hyde Park daily at night, that I only kept because it was really damn solitary, paying barely enough for me to eat, or that I had law classes at university of all things starting in September? For now, it didn’t matter at all, or so I told myself.

The fourth box took ages to unpack. As I was already moving, starting fresh, I had a bit of a fixation on doing everything right. Fooling myself wasn’t possible. I knew I was going to fuck things up for myself again sooner or later. But organizing my video games and DVDs perfectly on the shelves was possible. So it was what I’d been busying myself with for a good hour when my comfortable solitude was loudly interrupted. Not literally. Not a noise reached my ears, save for the distinct London traffic noise seeping through the closed windows. A thought popped into my head in a voice I didn’t recognize, a thought that definitely wasn’t my own.

_That was such a cute dog though. What if it had wings? It was so small, it would probably float in the air if you just tied a balloon to it. It should have a red balloon, that would make it look even cuter. What if there were just generally dogs flying around with balloons tied to them like the frozen yoghurt in that one ad? Wait, they would probably poop on people’s heads like pigeons. Oh no, we don’t need any more pigeons, even though dog pigeons would be much nicer to look at. Did I forget to buy cereal? I don’t want to leave the house again, where is it? Oh, there it is._

Was I supposed to laugh at this, cry, or simply be amazed? Unable to decide, I sat frozen and listened as the person thinking these obnoxiously distinguished, articulate and pure thoughts approached. This was one of the most intriguing minds I had ever encountered, not for its complexity, but for the simple co-presence of a child’s imagination and an adult’s reflection that I had never come across before. In addition, it was rare that thoughts came to me with such clarity, even my own. The person these thoughts belonged to kept approaching, to the point where I was convinced that they had to be right in front of my apartment’s door. Then it hit me. They weren’t in front of my door. They were in front of their own door, standing approximately three metres from mine and, according to their thoughts, currently looking for their keys. This person with their colourful and loud and beautiful mind had to be my neighbour. I hated them already.

The thing was, people were shit. And I knew. I, Dan Howell, wasn’t a fourteen-year-old emo posting on tumblr about how one day I was going to start a general genocide because I hated people that much, when really I was just angry I couldn’t fit in. I was very much a nineteen-year-old with a coincidentally emo fringe and a hate for people much more profound than anyone else’s. I didn’t mean to say that I could fit in, or had a fraction of the self-esteem expected from a functional member of society. Or that I didn’t have a tumblr. Yet again, I had lost my string of thoughts.

People were abysmal, appalling, awful, disgusting, dreadful, ghastly, horrible, loathsome, repulsive, sickening. People were more facettes of evil than the dictionary offered words for. Put at the vocabulary level of a first grader, humans were the worst living creature on Earth.

It wasn’t possible that this neighbour was any better than the back-stabbing, atrocious, hideously mean and ignorant people whose most private and vilest thoughts I was constantly bombarded with. I simply refused to believe it, even though their mind was currently filled with the lyrics to Feeling Good by Muse, which, no way. He could not possible like my favourite band. For some reason, the constant stream of lyrics in my mind, but not my own internal voice, made me angry. I gave up on organizing the games, basically finished anyways.

There was only one way I could get the person on the other side of the hallway to stop distracting me with their overwhelming thoughts. I had to get them to think about me. Normal people would have probably introduced themselves, maybe walked over to their neighbour’s door with some homemade baked goods and a cheery smile all over their face. I decided to take a shower. Walking across the hallway with my towel and shower gel in hand didn’t turn out to be enough of a distraction to block out my neighbour’s thoughts.

_This orange juice is pulpy, ew. Where was my head at in the store? Right, I was thinking about what it would be like if rivers were orange juice instead of water. Tasty, but sticky. I would probably end up drowning in a river of orange juice. But then I’d have it stuck in my hair. Maybe a fountain would be better for unlimited orange juice. Can I find a way to incorporate this in Kingdom of Oxin? I don’t even know if fairies drink orange juice, maybe they would prefer apple juice._

This was absolutely ridiculous. At this point, I knew a fair few things about my mysterious neighbour: They liked dogs. They actually watched the adverts on TV. They liked their orange juice without pulps. And they were probably a really mature and self-sufficient five-year-old with the ability to form complete sentences. What was this Kingdom of Oxin thing supposed to be? No, wait, I didn’t actually care.

Groaning to myself, I turned on the water. Then I screamed. It was fucking cold. Freeze your balls off streaking across the lawn in the middle of January cold. I would never admit that I had any experience with that. Miraculously, the voice in my head stopped. This hadn’t been my plan. I was delighted with the outcome nevertheless. Especially so as the water started to gradually warm up.

More than five minutes later though, having already gotten out of the shower, towel-dried my body and put on some clothes that were definitely not pyjamas, I still couldn’t hear my neighbour thinking. They surely weren’t still thinking about me? Me in this case being their weird new neighbour. They couldn’t possibly be thinking of me in any other way. The first impression of me they got was screaming. Not that I cared, because I didn’t. I definitely wasn’t relieved when the thinking started again. My neighbour had now settled on the subject of fairies and the likes again, apparently contemplating the colour of their hair. I tried my best to block them out.

There were several reasons for me not having even the shadow of a social life. One was that I was naturally just an indistinguishable blob of social anxiety and awkwardness. Another one was that I hated humanity.

Then, lastly, I had stalked the people I attempted conversation with before it was cool and what everyone did. It was normal now to spend hours on a person’s facebook site and come out with knowledge about their second cousin once removed attending a party somewhere in Shanghai. You didn’t flaunt your stalking tendencies, but it wasn’t heavily questioned if you already knew about Aunt Sharon’s divorce with her third husband before your new friend got the chance to tell you.

Six-year-old Dan didn’t have much of a filter when it came to knowing everything about his classmates he wasn’t supposed to know. Six-year-old Dan didn’t have the omniscient Internet to blame his inexplicable knowledge on in 1997. Six-year-old Dan thought people were going to like him more if he catered to exactly what they were thinking about. A spoiler alert for six-year-old Dan: That was not the way it worked.

As nineteen-year-old Dan, I knew now how to tell the difference between thoughts and spoken words; I hadn’t slipped up in years. But every bit of information about someone that I wasn’t supposed to know put a strain on me, even now that I didn’t keep anyone close enough to disappoint them, even now that I had convinced myself I didn’t care about anyone. So I tried not to listen. I distracted myself by unpacking some more boxes.

My neighbour was thinking about raccoons.

I distracted myself by having slightly overcooked spaghetti for dinner. I would have to work on my cooking skills if I didn’t want to live off either takeaways or home-cooked meals that were mediocre at best.

My neighbour was pondering over what they should have for dinner.

I almost hated the fact that I had tonight off work. My sleep schedule was screwed; I wouldn’t get tired until the early hours of the morning. There was nothing left to do. Everything was meticulously clean. Knowing that it would never be in this state again, I sank as low as to take a series of pictures of it. Meanwhile, someone in the flat below me arrived, but their thoughts were quiet. Easy to ignore.

My neighbour decided on buttered toast with scrambled eggs.

I resorted to scrolling through tumblr mindlessly, too restless to concentrate on a movie or a new series. At the end of half a day, most of which I had spent shuffling back and forth through my apartment, putting my stuff away and trying to get used to the minuscule amount of space between my bedroom and my living room, plus the fact that both of these rooms were basically crammed with the few belongings I had, the original comfort of the sofa had already worn down significantly. Concentrating hard, I was positive its springs were poking into my back.

My neighbour was thinking about the flavour of their toothpaste, and all the possible ways it could have been less unpleasant. By the sound of it, he wasn’t quite sure if the developers of toothpaste ever brushed their teeth.

I went and brushed my teeth, simply because it was ten pm and I had yet to, not at all because mysterious neighbour’s thoughts had reminded me to. My toothpaste was supposed to taste like mint. I couldn’t help agreeing that there was room for improvement on the flavour-front. At ten past ten, I found myself ready for bed with nothing left to do. Man, how exciting life was when you lived alone right at the start of your best years.

It certainly got my heart rate up that I had to turn off all the lights in my apartment and then crawl into bed, fully aware of how alone I was. For a good ten seconds, I was surrounded by silence.

The oddness of this fact only struck me when the neighbour’s thoughts crept into my mind again. Right. Silence wasn’t a thing that happened to me. Against the kind of noise my brain was constantly penetrated by, there were no earplugs, or noise complaints to the police. The apartment was perfectly quiet, so quiet the soft whirring noise of the refrigerator was clearly audible from all the short way over to the kitchen.

I wasn’t focusing on that, although I actively tried. Anything would have felt better than invading my neighbour’s privacy. Nothing worked. No guilt strumming through every fibre of my body was able to drown the string of words flooding into my mind, forming a story and creating a picture more vivid and alive than the very peak of reality. So I gave up on trying to preserve my illusion of dignity. I had never been fond of lullabies or stories before bed, becoming aware at the very moment I became aware of my own existence that my parents were far less than fond of them. Just wanting to make my parents happy, I had subsequently rejected them fervently, not that it had taken a lot of convincing for my parents to simply stop. They were all too glad to. Here, eighteen and in the first apartment that was mine, mine alone, I found myself listening in on someone’s private thoughts, and growing more and more tired by the minute.

_Where did I…. Here. Should I do rainbow raccoons or orange juice fountains today? I guess the fairies need to drink. I really need to take care of everyone before I can add any more inhabitants to this kingdom, no matter how absolutely adorable rainbow raccoons would look. No, the fairies should really come first. They still have the lake to cross before they even reach the flyons._

The what? Scratch that, it didn’t matter.

_The sky lit up golden on the fourth morning of their quest. Rays of sunlight were only just beginning to bring vibrant colours back to the sleeping world, giving the trees a bright green tint all over again. The dark, looming night faded as slowly as it had come the night before. Every morning brought the undiminished beauty of a new beginning._   
_Tabitha, not yet seeing the golden sky from her hiding spot in between big leaves every shade of green, stretched her arms out, then her legs, then her arms again. The damp moss from the early morning dew tickled her carefully tucked wings in a very uncomfortable way. All soreness was forgotten though, when she, upon pushing the soft leaves that had shielded her aside, her searching lilac eyes were met with the golden glimmer of light on the gigantic lake, stretching almost all the way to the horizon. Only thin line of pink separated the sky and a sparkling sea. Tabitha knew that line was a forest; it was the forest they were trying to reach, the one where flyons were rumoured to be held captive. Nature had its own rules over there, and very few fairies had ever set foot on that shore of the lake. Very few fairies had ever attempted to cross said lake, for fairies were tiny, pale beings. The reflection of sunlight in the gentle waves of the lake provoked the nastiest kind of sunburn._ _  
They were only about four oranges high, and really required only the juice of said fruits to live. Tabitha was thirsty. In the soft orange hills, the hills they had quit a mere three days ago, every house was built close to a fountain of the vital liquid. It was where the fairies lived, where the sky was the most golden and the grass was soft enough for the children to learn to fly, as it would catch their falls._

_“Eliza!” Tabitha called into the silence. “Eliza, wake up!”_

_The silence didn’t last for long, as the birds began chirping everywhere around, and the smallest turquoise twigs of the towering trees began swaying back and forth with the buzz of life. A red mop of hair soon made its way through the surging mass of green and blue._

While I wasn’t quite sure I trusted my ears on this one, I didn’t get to question these thoughts my neighbour was having; the images they were creating in their mind flooded mine with a fervour that would’ve surely disturbed me hadn’t I felt so drowsy, so calmed by all the peace in my mind. The moment it stopped must have been the moment I finally drifted of completely to sleep.


	2. Two

The situation grew considerably worse over the course of the next month in every regard. When I woke up for the first time in my new home, i had my mind to myself. My neighbour was out. So I did what any reasonable human being would do. I got dressed, meaning I put on some sweatpants and a crinkly t-shirt, and then I ventured out of my flat to check the name on my neighbour’s doorbell. Involuntary stalking was my entire life anyway; I might as well continue it voluntarily. If I wasn’t such a coward, I could probably make a living by working for the FBI- And if they wouldn’t just either lock me up in an asylum or otherwise in a cage to . Back to the matter at hand, though. My neighbour’s name was Phil Lester. Naturally, I did not spend a few moments too long staring at the simple black on white letters.

When someone’s thoughts (not Phil’s) about their missing keys entered my mind, I made a break back through my own opened apartment door. That was enough excitement before noon. I had a shift tonight and only a few hours to waste beforehand.

It was quite clear there was no excitement in my life, and I liked that. Really. Throughout the next month, I worked, did not deal with my messed up sleep schedule, played solitary games of online Mario Kart, did not attempt to do anything really productive, listened to Phil developing an entire kingdom at night when I happened to not be working and did not start eating healthier. How could I, when half my neighbour seemed to think about was sugary cereal and marmalade toast at four am? It was frustrating.

Phil was frustrating. I had never met the guy, but I hated his guts nevertheless. How could he dare to always be so positive? I waited weeks for him to crack. To cross the line that every person I had ever met had crossed before. Sure, his thoughts were weird. They were weirder than most people’s; the fairies, I had learnt, were part of a story he wrote and published online that a fair few people even read regularly. So were the mystical creatures he called flyons. And the forest in the place where I had first gotten to join Eliza and Tabitha, his main characters, on their journey across the entire kingdom, was indeed blue and green. This phrasing made me sound just as pathetic as I was. Despite myself, I had gotten invested in the story. It was a whole new kind of guilty pleasure for me. My point still stood though. Phil was weird. He had to be grown, otherwise he wouldn’t be living alone, but my first impression of him stuck - he was a giant manchild.

So it wasn’t like he pretended to be normal. He had insane amounts of coffee and sweets, and he wrote overly creative fantasy fiction online that people donated money to him for, to make him keep writing. He had a sleep schedule almost as messed up as mine despite vanishing at relatively regular hours during the day, mostly before I woke up, to go to work. He worked somewhere in an animal shelter, as far as I could gather. An animal shelter! Could he become any more cliché?

I had not heard a mean thought from him in the entire month that had passed since I my moving in. He would scold himself mentally at the occasional swearword that had probably made it out of his mind past his lips. It was ridiculous. Although he did spent most of his time thinking about the Kingdom of Oxin, I had heard enough of his thoughts about co-workers, other people in the house (whom I had met none of so far), and his family to gather that even when something displeased him, there was never an ounce of sticking negativity about it. Once, three weeks after moving here, I was forced to listen to him make a mental note about apologizing to his mother because he had been snappish to her in the morning when leaving his parents’ house. This thought made me feel both angry and relieved, because I now knew where he had been the past three days that the apartment had been soaked in silence, but also because that was not normal, being so wound up about snapping at your mother a little.

Mostly, I realized, because I was a stupidly reflected person and couldn’t stay oblivious to my deeper intentions like the people in books and movies always did, until someone pointed them out to me, I felt ashamed. I knew how horrible people were, and what they did to each other, and I didn’t even make an effort to exclude myself. And here was Phil, who made being a good person seem so effortless.

On the same Tuesday that he had already exasperated me by being exaggeratedly nice to his mother, this was what invaded my brain in the afternoon, just like that obnoxious ray of sunlight waking you up after one hour of sleep:  _ I am such a mole without my glasses. I should live in the earth too, at least there wouldn’t be any coffee tables. My toe hurts. I wonder if moles even have toes they can stub. I’ve never seen a real-life mole! I should google where to see real-life moles. I’m so clumsy. What if there ever was a banana peel in front of my bed? These pyjamas are too old to go to the hospital in. _

I spent a week on the floor of my living room, trying to deal with the massive amount of anger boiling inside of me in a non-destructive way and failing dramatically. I dragged myself to work and ranted to some pigeons, dragged myself to the bathroom and spent uncomfortably long intervals of time staring at myself in the mirror, dragged myself to the kitchen and mostly ate dry cereal after I ran out of milk. Once, I even dragged myself to the shower.

On my one month anniversary of the joy of living alone, I ventured out of my apartment during the daytime for the first time in a few weeks because I was again in desperate need of food. My storage cupboards were empty. Literally empty. There wasn’t even the ever-present half-empty jar of pickles at the back of my fridge that seemed to be a constant protagonist of pop culture anything.

This discovery of a flat void of food let to the discovery of a bank account void of money. I was so broke that I couldn’t afford ordering pizza and not starving for the rest of the month. After paying this month’s rent, I had twenty pounds left. Work would bring in more money soon, but I needed that to cover rent, too. One thing I sure as hell wasn’t going to do was ask my parents for money. In conclusion, it was a very bad day.

It was three pm and I had virtually just gotten out of bed. I hadn’t done anything with my hair, which resulted in it being a greasy, curly mess. I hadn’t showered in three days. I was wearing sweatpants that had seen better days, simply because their ugliness lead to me never wearing them, which resulted in them being at least clean, and the most crinkled t-shirt the world had ever seen. I could’ve just as well walked out of the door wearing nothing but a bathrobe, but I wasn’t sophisticated enough to own one of those.

The worst thing, in hindsight, was that I paid absolutely no attention to anything around me whatsoever. NASA could’ve launched a mission from the street right below my window and I would not have heard from far too deep in my own spiral of self-hatred and despair. When my apartment door fell shut behind me, it was only registered duly by some part of my mind.

I noticed the silence at the exact moment that I collided with something. No, I collided with someone. This was a warm and breathing and moving person against me, and this person moved specifically to cling onto me to stop us both from falling over. It was a miracle we managed not to end up on the ground, stacked on top of each other like two slices of bread in a very boring sandwich. Instead, we stood in the middle of the hallway, wrapped in each other like two lovers who hadn’t seen each other in ten years. I had serious doubts this scenario was any better.

I instantly knew who this person was. My mind froze. My body jumped backwards at lightning speed.

“I am so sorry,” I blurted. Anything else that I was going to say got stuck somewhere on the way from my brain to my mouth when striking blue eyes met mine, peeking through a fringe which would’ve been the mirror image of my own hair, just in black - had I bothered to straighten it. Which, naturally, I hadn’t. I had been prepared to face some teenage cashier covered in acne at Tesco. I hadn’t been prepared for this to be the day I finally met my neighbour.

My hatred for Phil Lester immediately intensified. He couldn’t be so nice, and so attractive at the same time; and worst of all, so close to my age. I could’ve dealt with a grandpa having the purest mind, I would have welcomed it to restore my wish to live, but he didn’t look over twenty-three. My life had officially turned ridiculous. Only it still wasn’t a sitcom. No pre-recorded laughter accompanied the awkwardness, no scripted witty banter arose. There was nothing but silence in my mind coming from this stupid angel standing barely a metre away from me, and nothing but screams from the part of my mind that was actually my own.

“No, it’s okay,” he replied with an apologetic smile. “I should’ve watched where I was going.”

I wasn’t sure if I had closed my mouth after the initial shock of meeting his eyes and it had now fallen open again at this blatantly ridiculous amount of selflessness, or if I had been hanging open like a fly-catcher the entire time. I briefly considered shouting at Phil. He probably would have ended up apologizing for that, too. We stared at each other in silence. He cleared his throat softly.

“Um,” he said. His smile started drooping slightly. “I’m Phil, by the way. I’ve never seen you around before?”

Oh, right. Of course I had forgotten something. While I knew everything about Phil, from his favourite cereal being Crunchy Nut to his preferred brand of toothpaste being Colgate, Phil didn’t know me at all. Of course my first slip since primary school would be facing a guy like him. In a minute, I would be starting a conversation about Mario Kart and the newest Muse album.

“Dan,” I said quickly. My smile felt forced. “I’m Dan. I, uh, live here. Sort of.” Over my shoulder, I gestured to the door to my flat. Phil’s eyes lit up. I hated myself for how intensely I wished I could know his thoughts about me. It was impossible to even figure out if this fruitless wishing made me foolish or simply masochistic. I couldn’t stop myself from staring into his eyes. They were so bright.

“Oh!” he exclaimed almost excitedly. “So you’re my neighbour now! It’s so nice to meet you.”

“Likewise,” I heard myself replying. My voice was too monotone. My eyes never quite met his again after the split-second of overwhelming blue. I was painfully aware of everything that was wrong with the way I looked and probably smelled right now. I was also painfully aware of the radio silence directed at me from Phil. Although I had literally nowhere to be, I felt the physical need to keep this conversation as short as possible. “Sorry, but-”

“Oh, you probably need to go! I’m sorry, I won’t be keeping you any longer.” Phil smiled sweetly. The corners of my mouth moved upwards all by themselves. In that very moment, I made a decision. I could never become friends with Phil Lester. No matter what. I couldn’t taint what was probably the only beautiful soul left in the world with my own gloomy, doomed one. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to hurt myself, not this time. It was that I didn’t trust myself with Phil.

As soon as he had said the word, I bolted, only giving him a nod for a good bye. How many more reasons for self-hatred was I going to give myself in just a single day?

I went to Tesco and spent my riches on cheap bulk foods like pasta that I would have to eat overcooked, as well as reduced price canned vegetables to make me feel at least a little responsible. I was fairly certain McDonald’s could have provided me with better nutritional value. Wasn’t I the epitome of a uni student already? Classes weren’t due to start until September and I still had like four weeks with basically zero responsibility left. I tried telling myself that what prevented me from going out was a lack of money, but despite there being myriads of voices in my head most of the time, in most cases I was able to tell my own apart. I could tell when I was lying to myself. With .73 pounds in my bank account and a shopping bag full of food that I only looked forward to eating because it would prevent my stomach from digesting itself, I returned to my apartment.

It was a mess. The sky was covered in the typical London grey. Through small windows, barely any light entered my space. The kitchen faucet was dripping. I was tempted to simply place a pot under it and wait until there was enough water for me to overcook my penne in, but then I was too hungry and too impatient for such highly scientific experiments. I boiled the water. I threw the pasta into the pot without hurting myself. I scrolled through tumblr while I was waiting. I overcooked my pasta. I didn’t really have enough cheese to make it acceptable.

Life. Was. Miserable.

Phil was thinking about a pastel pink forest in such vivid words and brilliant images that I could see it when I closed my eyes. When I opened them again, the mysteriously stained grey wall I was facing suddenly made even pastel pink sound appealing.

In the middle of the afternoon, I decided to take a nap. Except I found myself unable to sleep. My entire existence was so pathetic by now that I relied, actually relied, on my neighbour writing his stories late at night to help me sleep whenever I wasn’t falling into bed completely exhausted after work. I did what I always did in times of despair. I turned to the internet. I googled some keywords and key sentences of Phil’s story, and it popped up immediately. 358.665 likes. Even more comments. The chapter he had been writing a few nights ago was easy to find.

_ Hidden behind large, dark pink leaves on a tree with branches more than big enough to comfortably sit on, Tabitha and Eliza watched in awe as a group of majestic winged creatures moved around in the tree just next to their little refugium. Neither of them dared to make a sound. The creatures were slightly bigger than they were themselves; flyons, with wings royally shimmering in shades of silver and gold. They were dancing the line between  wise and playful. Their white fur looked soft from afar, very soft. It didn’t seem like they were dangerous, and really, they weren’t; but there was always something otherworldly about them, something that transcended this forest, this kingdom, maybe this entire world. They just seemed to know more than any other creature. While there were many of them in this big forest, groups like these were unusual. Six, seven, maybe even eight of the beautiful beings in one place came close to being a miracle. Flyons, from what the fairy teachers claimed, were solitary creatures, who preferred wandering about alone, and who, despite all living in the same forest, seldom crossed each other’s paths. They didn’t cooperate much with any other creature of the kingdom. Tabitha made a point of not looking at their claws. Eliza focused on not even noticing their teeth. _

_ The plan was now to approach them. They probably were really nice creatures. They were definitely of ethereal beauty, with shimmering shiny fur and wings, and like your grandma’s most valued Christmas baubles on the pink trees. They stood out here on the ground; their camouflage was for the golden sky. Eliza took a deep breath. She pushed the large leaf that was covering her from their view aside. Silence immediately replaced the soft purrs that had been resounding in the gentle breeze... _

I woke up at nine pm, with only twenty minutes before my shift was supposed to start. My phone was next to me on the pillow. When I unlocked it, the story immediately popped up again. In my delirious state I pushed the like button before I closed the app.

Leaving the flat now, with my hair still unstraightened, but at least with a beanie on top of the mess, I was careful to listen for Phil’s thoughts. My insides felt uneasy when I thought about running into him again. The apartment and my mind were both filled with noise at this time of the day. My downstairs neighbour, an old cat lady who thought the most atrocious things about her entire family, was giving a piano lesson. I could even hear the awful noises her student was creating. But Phil didn’t seem to be home. His easily distinguishable thought-voice wasn’t mixed in with the disgusting blend of sounds my poor brain had to process. It was so unlikely that he’d be thinking about me that I didn’t even stop to consider it while hurrying to put on my shoes and grab my keys.

_ What if I was allergic to my own tears? _

I froze with my hand on the handle of the door. Oh. Phil was home. That implied he had been thinking about me before. I swallowed hard. Was he still angry at me for running into him? I told myself I didn’t care what he thought. I found that I was still completely unable to lie to myself. These childish quarrels of my mind with itself stopped mattering when instead of just hearing Phil’s voice, I actually began to listen.

_ Would they burn my face off, like acid? I could look like Deadpool. I don’t want to kill people. Knowing me, I would just be a faceless ghost. That would be so creepy, I’d get a heart attack every time I look in the mirror. Great, now I’m sad and scared. Maybe I shouldn’t leave my bed tomorrow. I should definitely stay in bed tomorrow. Maybe that won’t be possible for much longer. _

The handle was still in my hand. My knuckles were white from gripping it. No. Phil was an angel. He didn’t deserve this sadness that I knew only too well, the kind of sadness that made your mind do anything to distract you, protecting itself even when it was too late already. Minds were good at illusions of sanity lightyears past the point of no return when falling into the abyss. I felt so strong an urge to help him, to knock on his door and do anything to just make those thoughts vanish from his mind, to pull him back out of the hole or at least stay with him for the fall, that I had to physically restrain myself. It was a cage around my chest, making my heart and lungs ache as they were harshly constrained, but I couldn’t start this all over again. I couldn’t get invested with anyone. I couldn’t try to help. It would only end badly. My fall had gone too far. I wasn’t fit to befriend anyone. Not anymore.

Believe it or not, but people had generally never really appreciated me knowing their deepest and darkest secrets.

Worst of all: While most likely already crying, Phil had been thinking about me. Here I was after one interaction with him, already being a villainous shadow in his life. My heart’s floodgates broke, making me curl up in a ball against the door that was still closed, trying to be small as darkness flooded me, from the pumping muscle in my chest that was so vital to my body and so useless to me, through my veins, through my entire being.

_ Please leave me alone. _

A shout, a spear, a bullet. The only movement in the room was my heaving flat, the only sounds were my own ragged breathing and the shrill cacophony of abused piano keys.

_ Why am I this way? Why can’t I just be grateful for what I have? What does it matter if people think I’m weird? Being normal is overrated. But at this point, I would take shallow happiness over whatever this is.  _

I needed to get going. I was late, terribly so by now, and I couldn’t afford being fired. I currently couldn’t afford anything. I certainly couldn’t afford thinking about Phil. I had already gotten too involved within this first month, I knew too much. Never before had I wanted to change fate this badly. Never before had I known with such clarity that it was impossible. Whatever I did was going to make everything worse.

I had never pretended to be a good person. My slate was frightfully stained.

My tentative attempts to do good as a naive child had never helped anyone. So I stopped. I stopped calling police stations anonymously and giving them details about criminals. I stopped trying to talk strangers out of suicide. I watched my classmate slowly fade from her eating disorder that everyone else only recognized when it was too late. I watched my parents fall out of love for each other, for me, and for themselves, and I watched them break apart next to each other with a galaxy between their hearts. I watched racists, drug addicts, alcoholics abusers murdererspedophiles… I watched. I tied bonds around my hands, and I gagged myself, as I grew older and the world grew darker each day. With every bit of myself that died, every part of myself being lost, I cared a little less, until I had walked down so many wrong paths, trying not to get hurt, that the original one was untraceable. Until the bonds had become permanent. Watching helplessly turned out to be the worst pain of all. 

When the glowing, gentle mind of Phil Lester was torn apart, I wasn't going to have my hands covered in its blood.


	3. Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello my dear readers,  
> for this chapter there is a slight trigger warning because dan has very negative thoughts and his behaviour is very destructive so please read with care!  
> i'm absolutely delighted with the responses i've gotten so far and will do my best do continue semi-regular updates. i love every single person who has given kudos or even left a comment, or, of course, subscribed:) you all get a little star.  
> also i'm always looking to improve my writing so please do feel free to point out any criticism you have!  
> thanks for reading and enjoy!

Eight weeks. I’d had enough. I had not an ounce of patience left. It had been  _ eight weeks _ since I had moved into the flat next to that of Phil Lester.

This guy had so many thoughts. All of them were clear to me like he was shouting them into a megaphone, one which in turn was pointed right at the paper-thin wall between my living room and his apartment. His mind was driving me mad. My own mind was doing a fine job at that, it did not need any help! Self-hatred and existential dread were slowly making room for anger. The red-hot magma was boiling in my chest almost constantly. The pattern was correlated to another near-constant occurrence: Being bombarded by the wonderful mind of my neighbour. The worst thing was that I couldn’t stop listening.

Whether he was thinking about the animals at the shelter, what to have for either breakfast, lunch, dinner or snacks depending on when he had woken up more than the actual time of the day, sloth videos, his grocery list, ideas for the Kingdom of Oxin, elaborate backstories for random people he had seen in the streets or which video game he should play, his thoughts were always more interesting than my entire life.

There was really only one thing in my life worse than Phil Lester. University.

I sounded dramatic and whiny even to myself complaining about something that had started three days ago. After all, I had chosen to study law. No-one had forced me to pick this particular course. Sure, my parents would’ve thrown more than one fit if I had decided not to go to university at all, but law? No-one had told me to do this. It just seemed logical. Like a rational decision. My attempts at motivating myself failed, sending me deeper into the abyss of angst. 

There were too many people in my uni classes, too many awful and stupid and annoying minds that were distracting me from what the professor was saying. In a dark place, stars were easily visible to the naked eye, right? In light-polluted London, not so much. In a silent room, the professor’s voice were easily audible to the poor student’s ears. In a thought-polluted lecture hall, not so much. Every day, I fed myself the maximum recommended amount of painkillers to get rid of the aftermath of crowds, headaches. I hated university.

It was six pm of my third day at university. I had a textbook opened to the right page in my lap, but although the tv was turned off and my phone was five metres away on the table, I could not concentrate on the admittedly boring text.

Phil was thinking about a lovely woman that had adopted a blind cat at the shelter during his shift that day. Everything about his life was so fucking perfect, I couldn’t stand it, I couldn’t bear it anymore.

Comparing myself to him  _ hurt. _ I snapped at cashiers, glared at random people in the streets and hadn’t talked to my parents ever since the day I had moved out. I was uncreative and untalented; my existence benefitted no-one, not even myself. I was useless. I would never be enough. I had known this for long, so long that sometimes the thought didn’t resurface for weeks at a time. Phil made it resurface every single day.

Something in me snapped. Simply tore. A string, a nerve, the last rope that held me in the realms of a semi-functioning human being. I was a bad person. Okay! Then that was it.  _ I was a bad person _ . I would not let Phil Lester of all people make me feel guilty about my entire existence. He would not be the final cause of my inevitable suicide at some point. I could hate myself just fine without his help, just like my mind was destroying itself enough without constantly being under attack! It was on an impulse that I started blaring music from my phone through my speakers; the most explicit and emo songs I could find, with shouting lead singers and ear-splitting instrumentals, were now blaring through what was probably the entire building. I didn’t care about my downstairs neighbours. They had sex at the goddamn weirdest times. They could stand a little music coming from above. People might argue that in a room resembling full of music at the volume of a nightclub, studying wasn’t going to be any easier, but external noise was something I could deal with quite well, earplugs being the magic ingredient.

In my mind, there was blissful, blissful silence. I was still angry at everything, but at least I could now be angry in peace.

This peace lasted for a week. I would blare music whenever Phil started thinking about the most random crap. It was almost like having a conversation on the Internet. He said something directed at the void, I screamed. Only I let the music scream for me, otherwise he would have probably called the police. Sometimes, I, or rather his annoying neighbour that he probably hated, would pop up in his thoughts even when there was no deafening music playing in my apartment. The satisfaction tasted bitter on my tongue.

But then Phil started ignoring the music. My Chemical Romance was playing at a volume that was far from civil when he just randomly started thinking about geese. And yeah, I had to admit that they were probably up to something, but I did not want to hear this right now! I didn’t want to feel obliged to look up pictures of their tongues.

It got so far that I was actually becoming sexually frustrated on top of all the other frustration building up inside my body. One simply did not masturbate while listening to their neighbour think about their dinner. Similar problems arose (ha!) from living with my parents, but it was far easier to trace their schedule and they left the house more than Phil did. I still remembered all the mortifying experiences of listening to their thoughts while they were having sex, and, when the amount of that declined, the their vile thoughts while masturbating to things that were definitely not each other. So far, I hadn’t been forced to listen to Phil’s sexual fantasies. I was glad of it.

So I was perpetually horny, hungry and growing steadily more annoyed.

It was Friday when I woke up with a headache already and decided to skip class.  _ Reasons why Dan’s a fail _ , number 386: I couldn’t even deal with one single full week of university.

It was Friday when I decided that simply making noise wouldn’t suffice any longer. I needed to do something drastic.

Phil was out. He’d left for work about ten minutes after I’d woken up. They had been horrible ten minutes. I absolutely did not care for his collection of mismatched socks. I did not care for the contents of his trashcan. I did not care for his work clothes covered in fur that needed a washing. By the time I had rolled over in bed twice, I had worked myself up to a rage. This was obviously the best way to start any day.

Wasn’t I a horrible person anyway?

My knowledge of random things about Phil finally came in handy. I barely even bothered to put on decent clothing before I stormed out of my own flat. My head was pounding. I hadn’t eaten anything more substantial than ramen in a day. I was a mess. Nothing could have justified my actions.

Phil kept his spare key in a hole in the annoyingly positive welcome sign on his door. He’d used it often enough while I was at home for the information to be branded into my memory. His door swung open with a slight creaking noise. My own door made the same. My stomach felt queasy. I pushed on.

Bright colours were everywhere. They physically hurt my eyes to look at. Everything was mismatched and covered in stickers and looked like it had come from the either the skip or his grandmother’s house, and there were sticky notes reminding him of day-to-day things on every surface that wasn’t covered in glittery cat stickers, and he had so many candles that I swore with his clumsiness it was a miracle that he hadn’t burned down the entire apartment building yet. I stole through the flat on my tiptoes at first, careful not to touch, careful not to breathe to harshly.

All went to hell when I stumbled over a power cable that was just there, lying out in the open. No. That was wrong. Nothing went to hell by itself. It was me. I made it all go to hell. I did it all by myself. Being a bad person didn’t feel good, but at least, it felt right. I threw the lamp to the ground. The lightbulb inside shattered. I imagined every lightbulb in the apartment as being one of Phil’s ridiculous ideas, one of his insane creations, one of his sickeningly bright and sweet thoughts, and I wanted to destroy them all, I wanted to plunge his flat into the same darkness that he had made so much more obvious in mine, I wanted to make him feel what he had been making me feel during the past nine weeks, and then, I stopped reasoning, I stopped thinking. I started rampaging.

I destroyed every single light bulb that I could find. From his bedside lamp, scattering the shards of broken glass all over his blue and green duvet that looked so similar to my own if it weren’t for the bright colours, to his ceiling lamp in the kitchen, of which I threw the light bulb against the wall and just left it there, I destroyed every single one of Phil’s bright, mesmerizing, amazing, annoying, stupid thoughts. 

His laptop was sitting on top of the microwave. My entire vision had gone red, like I was looking through a filter of rage, a curtain of blood. I took the laptop. I opened it. I typed in the nonsensical password. I opened Google Chrome. I went on every single dangerous website I could think of. I illegally downloaded three porn videos from very questionable sources. Phil’s antivirus program fought bravely. Nothing was working. I actively downloaded a virus. Then, I shut the computer down.

I didn’t know how much time had passed. It felt like I hadn’t taken a single breath ever since stepping through the door on the wrong side of the hallway. I blinked once. I blinked twice. I took in the horrible scene around me. There were several small cuts on my hands from the glass. My breathing quickened. I needed to get out of this flat, and fast. I barely remembered to put the key in its place. I almost fell twice while stumbling the three metres back to my own flat. The queasiness in my stomach had turned to to full-fledged nausea.

I barely even made it to the toilet before I was puking out the contents of my near-empty stomach, retching violently. What the fuck had I done. It would bring silence to my mind just fine; there was no way for Phil’s thoughts to not be preoccupied with the damage done to his flat for a while. But at what cost? Could I even still call myself human after this?

A tiny voice in my head reminded me that if Phil called the police, I was doomed. My DNA was all over the place. But wasn’t I doomed anyway? Locking me up could only be a good thing for the rest of the world. The faster it happened, the better. I was ready to spend my life behind the barred windows of some psychiatric ward. Once again, it wouldn’t feel good, but there was a chance it might finally feel right.

I didn’t remember passing out, but I woke up on the bathroom floor with a rotten taste in my mouth and the violent urge to throw up again. There was nothing left in my stomach to come up. My throat was on fire from the retching. My head was burning. The pounding headache had never left.

And then I heard it.

Phil’s thought.

Of all things possible, of sirens from outside or aliens invading the Earth, it had to be this.

_ I can’t afford buying food if I buy lamps. _

It was a single thought. Just a single thought that fell through the net catching every thought related to me. My heart ached. What the fuck had I done? I stood up, dizzy, and managed to flush the toilet on third try. Brushing my teeth was painful. What the fuck had I done. I hated myself. I hated myself more than ever before. I couldn’t bear to look at myself in the mirror; a single glance at bloodshot black eyes made me feel sick again. What the actual fuck had I done? I doused my hands in disinfectant. It didn’t succeed in washing off any of the guilt.

Somehow, I made it to my bed.

_ What will I tell my parents? I can’t ask them for help. They are poor enough as it is. _

I was a monster.

_ It’s school all over again. _

I was the villain of my own story. Worse, I was now the villain of Phil’s. I was a black hole, destroying everything that came too close to me. My physical inability to move from my bed was all that was keeping me alive. I wasn’t even good enough to kill myself.

Tears streamed down my face, tears of pain and guilt and shame and hatred and sadness and loneliness and emptiness. Unworthy tears. Tears I didn’t deserve to shed. Tears that weren’t mine to cry.

There were shadows moving through my room, taunting me, laughing and shouting at me and teasing me and I watched with fever burning behind my eyes, with tears obscuring my view of the slowly darkening room. There was no time. Only Phil’s thoughts, now and again. Every time his voice pierced through my mind, I sobbed.

_ Kingdom of Oxin is online. _

_ I will never be welcome anywhere. _

_ It’s my fault. _

I fell asleep some time in the middle of the night, exhausted from tossing and turning, from crying. I wished I could’ve died like this, simply fallen into nothingness; but there was no easy way out for creatures like me. It was a restless sleep; but my phone was far away and I had no fancy digital alarm clock on my bedside table, so waking up consisted of my eyes blinking open to find darkness, and then the incredible headache settling in again, before I managed to drift back into oblivion. My sheets were damp, sticking to my heated skin uncomfortably. I couldn’t decide if I was hot or cold. A few times, I woke up shivering. One time, I semi-consciously peeled off my sweat-soaked t-shirt and threw it to the floor.

By the time it was light when my room was lit up, I wasn’t sure if I was even still alive or if this was just my own personal hell. My throat was sore. My throbbing head prevented me from any coherent thinking. My own mind was a jumbled mess. With my shaking hands and weak arms, it took me three tries just to sit up in bed. I saw stars from the movement, little spots dancing in front of my eyes, taunting me, distorting the familiar view of my room. 

I couldn’t hear Phil’s thoughts.

I needed a glass of water, and my pain killers. I might have as well had to walk five miles in the desert to the nearest well, not five metres to the kitchen sink, with the way every step drained my energy. I winced as I had to hold on to the door frame of already my room so that I wouldn’t fall over. My actions of the day before were inexcusable, and I finally knew there was justice in the world. I was getting what I deserved. My anger was gone. Left to me was a black pit of self-hatred, and emptiness. Emptiness was calm. Not soothing, but calm at least; nothing was boiling, nothing was raging, nothing was tearing me further apart.

I smiled. Only five more steps. The cool water soothed my throat only ever so slightly, but at least it made the pain of swallowing go from plain hell to just awful. I reached up to get my painkillers from the hanging kitchen cupboard they were in, but it was too much. My shaky legs gave in. Instinctively, I closed my eyes. My arms failed, trying to hold on to something, anything, to prevent the inevitable from happening. My hands slipped off the counter, unable to hold on to it. A sharp pang of pain surging through my entire body made me scream. It was so intense and white-hot and all-consuming that I couldn’t even tell what exactly I had fallen on. All of my bones were hurting. I hadn’t even known that you could feel your bones aching like this.

I knew what I had done to deserve this.

Getting up was no use. The kitchen tiles were cold at least, soothing against my bare skin. I still wasn’t wearing a shirt. My eyes fluttered shut slowly. The ground seemed like a good place to get some more sleep.

That was, until a loud banging noise startled me back awake. I winced. What was that? Was the world finally coming to an end? Had the devil himself come to get me?

It took me a few seconds to realize that no, in fact, this was the noise of someone hammering against my door. Whoever it was, they just wouldn’t stop. I crawled to the doorframe, and managed to pull myself up onto my feet somehow. The worst wave of dizziness had passed.

I opened the door, not even thinking about what I looked like, until I saw the concerned face of the person behind it. Phil’s hands were still lifted up in fists. It was a miracle he hadn’t punched me in the face. His eyes widened.

I didn’t know what he was thinking, of course not, but I could imagine it; I wasn’t exactly a pretty sight for a Saturday morning. Fuck, I wasn’t even wearing a shirt. His initial expression of shock gradually moved into one of concern. His features softened. I couldn’t bear it.  Flashes of his destroyed apartment passed through my mind. It was a good thing my stomach was so empty.

“What do you want?” I shouted the words at him, or at least I tried to, but what came out was a pathetic croak. And then I was crying. Why was I crying? I hadn’t cried in years, and now, all of a sudden, my body had an endless supply of tears. “Leave me alone! I’m fine! I don’t need your help!”

I slammed the door in his face. No, I  _ tried  _ to; Phil had other ideas. He shoved his foot into the gap, preventing me from locking him out, from shutting out everything. I didn’t have the energy to try again, neither mentally nor physically. When I kept holding on to the door, it was to try and keep myself upright. I had no dignity to protect, but I also wasn’t going to crumble down on the floor like the pathetic creature I was, in front of him of all people. My chest heaved. I couldn’t meet his eyes.

“You don’t look fine,” he said calmly. I watched his hands move nervously. “I heard you screaming. I’m sorry for invading your privacy, I really am, but I’ve been worrying about you for a while, and I thought I might have to call an ambulance.”

He paused. I didn’t attempt to say anything. My mind was racing. He’d been  _ worried  _ about me? No. Phil was a bad liar; I knew that. He couldn’t live with even the tiniest lies. He was honest even about not liking people’s clothing, for fuck’s sake! I’d heard him beat himself up about a situation like that, even if he had complimented seventeen other things about the person’s appearance, more than once. But he had to be lying now. It just wasn’t possible that all the thinking about me had been him worrying. Silence. Silence. Silence. I held my breath.

“Um,” he said. “Can I… Can I come in?”

I breathed in hard and fast, trying to . He wanted to come in. I didn’t know why I let him. Maybe it was that I didn’t really have it in me to argue. Maybe it was I had given up. Maybe it was so that he’d finally see my true self, finally start hating me back. Maybe I subconsciously wanted his help. It didn’t matter. I opened the door for him. He gave me a concerned smile.

“You’re shivering,” he observed in a soft voice. His gaze was fixed on me. He didn’t even seem to notice the lack of things in my flat, or the lack of order, or the badly painted walls. He was right. I hadn’t noticed. Now that he’d said it, I was suddenly freezing. “Go put on some clothes.”

I complied. Why did I comply? I was nineteen years old. I made my own decisions. Two minutes later, I found myself in my living room on the couch, wearing a sweatshirt and wrapped in two blankets. Phil was next to me. My living room was a dusty mess. I hadn’t cleaned in weeks. The only reason there were none of the stacks of empty pizza boxes that were part of any messy room in pop culture just like the jar of pickles, which I also still didn’t have, was that I simply couldn’t afford living on take-out. Phil, unrealistic angel that he was, made an obvious point of not looking around, only looking at me. I wanted to be angry again. Anger was something I knew, something I could deal with. I couldn’t deal with being treated this nicely, least of all by Phil. I did not deserve the concern in his eyes, and I knew it, and he didn’t, and my guilt was skyrocketing and then his piercing blue eyes became too much and I resorted to staring at his chest, but that wasn’t much better, because there was a smiling lion on his bright red shirt. I closed my eyes.

“Are you okay?” Phil asked softly.

I opened my mouth to say that yes thank you, I was just peachy. What came out was a strangled sob. Well. I wasn’t okay.

“Do you want to talk?”

I wanted to say that no, I didn’t, and could he please leave me alone. What came out was a rushed string of words that I had absolutely no control over.

“Why are you so nice to me? You can’t- I’m not- It’s not- I hate the way you just won’t hate me! No-one is this nice. It’s not possible, it doesn’t exist, you can’t be human, you’re supposed to, to be annoyed with me. Just fucking- It was me! I broke your lamps! Your life is so bright and I- just black, all is  _ blackblackblack _ , and you make me look at the light and then I’m so lost, I’m so lost, and you’re not supposed to worry about me, you’re supposed to leave me alone and continue being fucking happy and bright and nice- Why won’t you leave me alone? I downloaded the virus on your laptop, it was me, just hate me already! I had no reason, you didn’t do anything, it wasn’t your fault okay? It was not your fault. The entire world is a fucking bad place and everyone has a skeleton hidden in their cupboards except for you- you’re just, you’re unnerving, and you shouldn’t be here! I don’t deserve your help, I deserve this pain and nothing else. I am a bad person, okay! I’m-”

All of a sudden, a warm hand was on my mouth, preventing me from croaking out more. My throat was sore all over again. I opened my eyes slowly, and was plunged immediately into a blurry ocean of blue. I couldn’t see clearly through the tears that were still streaming down my face, but Phil didn’t look angry, still didn’t look angry after I’d told him what I’d done. He looked confused, if anything, confused, slightly overwhelmed, and still worried. This wasn’t fair.

“I’m so sorry,” I said against his palm.  _ I hate myself _ . “I’ll replace everything when I get my next paycheck, I promise, I’ll fix your laptop, I’ll do anything. I know you hate me. Just say it.”

Phil slowly shook his head. He removed his hand from my mouth, pushing a strand of my curls to the side and then gently placing it on my forehead. I sat frozen in shock.

“I don’t hate you,” he said. My heart skipped a beat. He was lying. “Everyone makes mistakes. And I don’t see how saying I’m too nice is an insult? I don’t have to understand all of you to know that you’re not an inherently bad person. You made a bad decision, yes. Maybe you made a few bad decisions. But the world isn’t all black and white. Now stop working yourself up about it. I’ll manage. Okay? I don’t need to understand you to respect you as a human being.”

He slowly moved towards me. By the time I realized what he was doing, it was too late to draw back. His arms wrapped around me in a gesture that was so natural, so easy. It didn’t feel wrong for a second to be hugged by Phil Lester. The thought scared me, but only for a moment; fear wouldn’t last while my entire world was turning into Phil, and Phil’s warmth, and Phil’s shoulder that I could bury my face in, and I felt myself melting into his body involuntarily. His grip around me tightened. I hadn’t been hugged this way ever before. I started crying again, silently, into his shirt, and he must have felt it but he never moved.

“You have a fever,” he muttered into my hair. “Dan, I know you think you have to deal with everything on your own, but that’s not true.”

I sobbed. I didn’t understand why he was staying. I wasn’t worthy of his concern. But he stayed. Even when he let go of me, it was slowly, always making sure I was fine. He left a hole behind, but I knew emptiness, and I didn’t complain.

“Now, you go to bed,” he instructed. His hand was still on my shoulder, warm and steady and holding me together, keeping me in reality. His smile was cautious. He’d already overstepped at least five of my boundaries. I didn’t care. “I’ll make you some soup. We can talk when you’re not ill anymore. But I’m not going to hate you then, either. I promise. I’m not just doing this because I pity you. Okay?”

“Okay,” I said. My voice was small. Next to Phil, the biggest man-child I had ever seen, I felt like I was five years old. I didn’t really know what else to say, how to express my confusion, my gratitude. I stuck to the simplest option of them all, a mere whisper, so quiet Phil leaned closer to hear. “Thank you.”

There were so many open questions between us and things left unexplained and problems to deal with and postponed panic that I was eventually going to have to face; the constant impending dread that this was but an elaborate joke and Phil was lying to me after all lingered at the back of my mind. But there was also the echo of his voice,  _ I promise, I promise, I promise _ .  _ I promise it will be fine _ .

A promise may not last forever, but this one was enough to make the shadows go away, if just for a while, if just long enough to let me drift into a dreamless sleep.


	4. Four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> soo i'm doing chapter notes again!  
> i'm really happy about the response this work has been getting, and so grateful for every person who takes a little bit of time out of their day to read what i spent like my entire weekend writing.  
> thank you all!
> 
> i'm on tumblr as cuddlydreamsonrainydays as well, and my messages are always open if you ever have question or just want to say hi. now enjoy!

I woke up in my bed, feeling like death. While I always felt like dying, feeling like death was a whole new kind of torture. My throat hurt like the literal fires of hell, I was a sweaty mess and the dull residue of a sharp headache lingered at the back of my skull. I groaned involuntarily when all I did was to turn over, and I wished I hadn’t; the noise didn’t help my throat. A glass of water was sitting on the bedside table. I didn’t remember putting it there, but then again, I was delirious at this point. I wasn’t quite sure if I remembered getting into bed. What I definitely remembered was rampaging Phil’s flat, then confessing this to him, and him still not hating me. My mission had failed.

Even in its lukewarm state, the water helped enormously. Phil must have put it on the table. Literal angel Phil. My flat smelled suspiciously of burnt toast. I didn’t hear his thoughts. The reason became clear when ten seconds later, there was a tentative knock on my door that had never been closed last night. Or tonight. I had no clue what time it was whatsoever, but judging by the slightly purple shade of grey in front of my windows, it was dawn. I blinked. 

“Yes?”

Phil pushed the door open further, and snuck into the room with soft steps. He had been thinking about me, or something related to me, then. He looked tired. His hair was all mussed up, his normally immaculate fringe rather resembling a sloppy quiff.

“Hey,” he yawned, looking so adorable that had I been in charge of the world, he would’ve been prosecuted for it. No-one was allowed to be nice and beautiful. That wasn’t fair. “I hope you don’t mind I took a nap on your couch.”

“No,” I said, instead of all the things I had wanted to say. It was the safest option. In addition to that, my throat still hurt, and any elongated sentences that were bad ideas from start to finish weren’t even possible. The effects of the glass of water were wearing off. We stared at each other for a moment. I couldn’t tell what was going on in his mind. I couldn’t read his sleep-ridden expression. By the time he cleared his throat, I had forgotten that it wasn’t socially acceptable to stare at people’s faces for five minutes straight. To be fair, he’d been doing it, too. My cheeks were already in flames, otherwise I would’ve blushed furiously.

“Um,“ Phil said. “I made soup before I went to sleep, I can reheat it?”

“Y-” I attempted to speak, but my throat was too sore. I felt a coughing fit approaching, looming just underneath the sandpaper. Nodding would have to do.

“Okay, okay, good,” Phil said. Well, wasn’t he just as awkward as I was? Chaotic good, though. Me? I was chaotic evil. We were literally polar opposites of the spectrum. If there was a spectrum of chaos. He smiled at me, widely now, not the small smile that was his stupidly happy general facial expression. Then, he left. I meanwhile embarked upon the mission of getting out of bed uninjured. There were a few close calls, but I finally made it. At least today, when I finally stood on my feet, the dizziness lasted for about thirty seconds only. I took a few tentative steps. Walking was fine. I didn’t crash into the doorframe, I didn’t slip or trip over my own feet in the hallway and I even managed to go to the toilet without falling over. Although I did flop down on the only chair in my kitchen, exhausted after successfully taking those ten steps. It creaked worryingly. Phil turned to smile at me. While I had avoided the bathroom mirror, I knew I must look like shit; and yet, his smile never even faltered. He hadn’t even seen me with a straightened fringe once. If I started assuming my normal look again now, he’d think I was copying him.

“The soup isn’t much, I’m afraid. I’m terrible at cooking, and honestly surprised I haven’t burned down the entire building yet. But yeah, it’s basically just vegetable broth, and then I toasted some of my bread that was too old to eat by itself and made cubes of it so now you have croutons à la Phil.” He was apologizing for making me food with the most earnest expression on his face, like he was actually sorry that he wasn’t some five-star-chef, and I would not have any of his bullshit. Not this time. I knew for a fact that my kitchen stocked neither vegetable broth nor bread, not even stale bread.

“Phil,” I coughed. I wanted to shout; not at Phil, just at no-one in particular. I was the personification of anger, and my fingers weren’t strong enough to make proper frustrated fists. Phil didn’t see any of the rage compressed into me. He handed me a glass of water. I had to hold on to it with both hands to make sure I wouldn’t drop it. At least I was spared the humiliation of spilling it down my shirt. My throat felt marginally better.

“Phil, don’t you dare apologize for making me food that I know you got from your own flat, just accept that you’re a goddamn angel.” The tirade that finally made it past my lips was a lot less intimidating than I had imagined it. And a lot more embarrassing. My face had cooled down enough so I could blush, which I rather wish it hadn’t. Phil didn’t laugh at me though. Was he blushing, too? His thoughts were still inscrutable to me. I hated it, I hated everything about this mind-reading curse, I hated myself for letting this hatred take over my entire person and life, I hated Phil for marching straight up to the part of me hidden underneath this hatred and not even having to try and find it on an epic treasure hunt or something similar, I hated myself for being so fucking stupid - this list could have gone on, but Phil, who had turned back to face me now and whose cheeks had assumed their normal unnaturally pale colour, was looking at me expectantly. Shit, which question had I missed?

“I asked if you wanted to eat here or in the living room,” he said, smiling. Not grinning, not laughing at me in even a friendly-banter-way, just smiling softly. I still wanted to shout, but now I also wanted to cry.

“Living room,” I croaked. It meant that I had to lift myself up from my chair, but there was only one chair here and we needed two, and a table. The one in the living room had a leg that would break any moment and wobbled even with all four of them intact, but at least it was a table. “More space. You need to sit, too.”

“You go ahead, then. No offense, but I don’t trust you with anything that can break right now.” I couldn’t protest, because the only part of my body I currently had full control over was my face, and Phil wasn’t looking to see my expression, which would’ve very clearly communicated ‘But I want to help and also that’s rude although I know it’s true just let me carry my own damn soup’ to him, of course. I couldn’t, and we both knew; he had noticed the shaking hands, then. I made a point of stalking over to the living room, and I absolutely didn’t care about it being highly likely that I looked like an emo flamingo with jell-o legs. Phil wasn’t looking, anyways, too busy not spilling soup himself. In a normal situation, he would’ve been the clumsy one! This knowledge gave me enough satisfaction for the moment to avoid bursting out of my human shell and becoming a red demon of rage. I would just pretend that that would have been possible if I had really wanted to.

Phil looked very pleased with himself when he made it to the table with two plates of his creation. I felt the corners of my mouth twisting upwards without my consent, and of course Phil caught that moment, not my barely confined rage surfacing. His smile widened, and now he looked pleased with me, just for smiling. I was rage! I was fury! I wasn’t a little smiling puppet! But I could give a smile. I could do as much. I was a horrible person far beyond saving all the same, but I didn’t have to pull Phil into this abyss with me. I couldn’t physically be scornful when he was looking at me like that and seemingly praising me just for a smile. This was just Phil, I knew that; getting my hopes up for him actually liking me, enjoying my company, appreciating me as a person, was masochism at its best. Of course it was just what my stupid brain felt compelled to do. 

The soup was the best thing I had tasted in months. The saddest thing was that it might actually objectively have been the best thing I had eaten since I’d moved in here. It did a much better job at soothing my throat than the cold water, too. We didn’t talk while eating. I stared at my plate stubbornly, until it was empty, and I didn’t have an excuse for treating it like the most interesting thing in the world anymore.

“It was really good, Phil,” I heard myself saying. “Thank you. You didn’t have to do this.”

“I wanted to,” he said, shrugging it off. I moved to collect the plates, trying to at least contribute something, but my limbs were still weak and he was faster. This was not a race under fair conditions. It was only when he laughed at me that I realized I was pouting. Pouting! It wasn’t like I had had any dignity or pride left after what I did to his apartment, but pouting at him was a new kind of low. I quickly readministered the perpetual frown on my face. Of course, now he would laugh at me. He was still chuckling when he came back from the kitchen. I had mastered the journey to the couch by then, and slipped into my usual position, which was the only one ensuring I wouldn’t get poked by springs. Ergonomically, it was probably a disaster, but what did I care? It wasn’t like I would live to see the ages of sixty and up. I was surprised I had lived to nineteen.

“Feeling better?” I blinked up at the question. He was standing rather awkwardly about a metre away from the sofa, cheeks tinged a soft shade of pink. “You know, if you want to talk, we can, but I can also leave if you want me to, I know I forced my way in yesterday because I was genuinely afraid you’d die and it’d be my fault if I listened to you and just walked away, but if you’re still not comfortable with me being here then I can leave you alone. It’s up to you.”

I panicked. Talking was probably the thing I wanted least; I needed to do some soul-searching first, when I was physically capable of an existential crisis again, and I wasn’t even sure yet if I needed to retrieve repressed information or repress new information in order to deal with this. But what freaked me out most was that I didn’t want to be alone. I was semi-fine physically, okay, but mentally, I was not safe to be left alone. I didn’t want Phil to go. I hated myself for it. I needed to make him leave. I needed to shut him out of my life before I hurt both of us. Being friends with me never ended well for people. My body was sabotaging me, though; it was that feeling of your laptop, which you owned, telling you that you weren’t authorized to do a thing or another because you weren’t the administrator. Only it was worse, because this was my body, and if it was already ugly and unfit, it was at least supposed to obey my commands.

“Please,” I croaked. Seventeen ongoing internal debates slowed down the words agonizingly. Also another coughing fit threatening to break loose if I said one more word, but I needed to express myself this time. “Stay.”

I couldn’t see Phil’s reaction. A split-second after uttering the word, the violent coughs had me doubled over, trying to minimize the pain which of course wouldn’t work. I felt my lungs being torn apart. I lost every track of time, or space, until there was a cold hand on my cheek, and a warm body right next to mine on the couch. It was something I could hold on to. I wasn’t going to lose myself in this storm.

When I opened my eyes again, Phil was the first thing I saw. Albeit his features being blurry from my watering eyes, I could see the concern in them, the pity. I couldn’t bring myself to care. Silently, Phil fetched me another glass of water from the kitchen. I wanted to protest, I really did, but I couldn’t before I drank the water, and by the end of the glass I had changed my mind. Phil looked so proud of me. I didn’t get it, I really didn’t; I had done nothing to be proud of. In fact, I had done the opposite: Firstly, breaking into his flat with the full intention of erasing the happiness and light from his face, and then secondly having the guilt make me physically ill so that he couldn’t even scream at me because I was weak, and to be pitied. I looked down. I couldn’t meet his eyes.

“I’ll stay,” he decided. His voice was gentle.

“Thank you,” I croaked. Tears were burning in my eyes. I couldn’t cry now. I couldn’t be that pathetic. With Phil staying right next to me, it was hard to stay tough, even though the bar for tough wasn’t set very high to begin with. I watched his fingers play with the hem of his shirt. We were silent. I couldn’t have spoken without the words turning into sobs. Everything was silent. I wanted to know what Phil was thinking about me, but I also didn’t, because there was no way he didn’t think I was pathetic. In his kindness, that would probably translate to something along the lines of ‘small child that needs to be taken care of and absolutely shouldn’t live alone yet, can’t even take regular showers or do his hair or buy basic vegetable broth that works for everything’, but it was all the same.

“Do you want to play some Mario Kart?” I startled at the question. It was so far from anything I had been thinking about. It was perfect. “I saw you had the game, and I thought doing something fun would-”

“Yes,” I interrupted, finally looking up at him again. This was such a normal suggestion, and an obvious one; it would have been lying to claim that I hadn’t previously started playing Mario Kart just because I had heard him play it. Now the pathetic past - well, that part at least - could be left behind if we actually played together. He still looked unsure, as if there were even any boundaries he could overstep that I hadn’t already overstepped, trashed and burned. “I’d like to.”

Phil was better than me at everything in life. So far, I had unsuccessfully tried to make him hate me, I had unsuccessfully sort of attempted to be about half as nice as him, which would have me winning in the realms of human capability, when everyone knew that anything above that was obviously superhuman, I had tried to be faster than him at sorting out the dishes, and I had tried to be a little more mysterious. Nothing had worked. Because Phil thought about me too much, and I couldn’t even blame him as that had originally been my goal. I hated it when my plans worked out. They were always so bad that them not working out had the better effect on my life. Then again, I hated them not working out just as much because this was my life, no matter how much it sucked, and my plans should work out.

There was one thing I was better at than Phil. Mario Kart. Even in my current state, I won. I kept winning. I needed to keep winning, too. Phil, undoubtedly, was the better loser out of the two of us, even though his justifications for losing were soon breaching out into the severely unrealistic. The only race I lost against Phil was when he was so genuinely surprised at himself being in third place at the beginning of the last round that he made me snort, not laugh, which morphed into a coughing fit at lighting speed and threw me off the track. I recovered quickly, but not quickly enough to win.

Phil did cheer afterwards, but only when he had ensured that I wasn’t dying of asphyxiation next to him.

I had another glass of water, and stayed more quiet afterwards. It got so far that Phil, sitting a mere twenty centimetres from me, of which I totally wasn’t aware and which totally wasn’t the closest human contact I had voluntarily entered in forever, had banished me from his thoughts so far that I got to hear them. Luckily, this one was not a track you could fall off. Getting out of the grass after swaying dangerously was far easier.

I hadn’t, of course, forgotten about the hug, but I was deliberately not thinking about it. Most of the time. So this was human contact in my books, and for me, Phil was constantly somewhere on my mind, be it his ridiculous character choice of Tanooki Mario, his abysmal skills at this game, which I appointed solely to the fact that he got distracted by the tracks too much, no pun intended, or just the simple realization hitting me again and again that there was a breathing human next to me. It wasn’t the breathing part that shocked me, it was the human part. I might hate humanity, but killing myself was still a priority to killing anyone else.

_ Those ice cream cones are gigantic, I could base my mountains off of them. But no, not all of the scenes can be happy. They need to be grey. Grey ice cream cones. Not half as appealing as this track. _

The thoughts broke off. I could only hypothesize about what he was thinking, but an emotionally neutral and thus plausible theory was that he was hungry, and thinking about the soup we had eaten earlier, which, to be fair, wasn’t a lot of substance for a fully-grown healthy man to survive on, even playing video games. Or he was thinking about interrupting our game to get food. Either way, I was indirectly involved.

It had taken me years to figure out what exactly the rules of the curse were. I had even, motivated by the Discovery Channel, drawn up tables in the beginning of the process, trying to figure it all out. The conclusion I drew from years of hard science was that fate was a fucking dick.

_ Cake. _

I was rather sure that an interval of time had to pass between a thought about me and a thought I could hear, just so I absolutely wouldn’t guess anything, just to taunt me a little more. I didn’t believe in reincarnation, or rather wished with all my might that it was nothing but a myth because I didn’t want to do this shit again, but just hypothetically, how much of an asshole had I been in my past life to deserve this? I liked how a single word didn’t relate to me in the slightest. I also liked, damn me, how Phil poked me in the side three seconds before I was about to cross the finish line, trying to distract me even though he was in fifth. It just felt so natural. Neither of us really kept track of the time, but the grey outside the windows was a full-on daylight grey by the time I became aware of it. My stomach growled, and I found it harder by the minute to ignore my drooping eyelids.

It was either tact or really good timing that Phil suggested we have some more food and then a big of quiet time, as he put it, barely a minute later. He was a mind-reader of the good kind, the human type; one who could always tell what others around him needed, what was the right thing to do, even though his interpretation of this sometimes turned a little awkward.

I didn’t allow myself to wish I was Phil Lester.

Instead, I focused all my energy on setting the table. It worked for the sole reason that I didn’t have much energy to give. For a moment, I was glad of this circumstance. We had more soup, and more bread. My breathing was already slowing down; sleep was approaching me so rapidly that I hastily wolfed down the remaining soup on my plate, as far as wolfing down with a hellishly sore throat went. One thing I absolutely didn’t want to add to the stack of shame that was sitting on my dignity, pushing it into the ground, was faceplanting into a plate of soup.

Phil collected the plates. I didn’t protest. Instead, I dragged myself over to the couch and half-sat, half-lay in a corner of it with folded limbs, hoping Phil would get the hint, hoping in my tired-beyond-reason state that he would stay.

I heard him walk back into the living room, heard him turn around, heard my front door open and close. I didn’t hear any of the thoughts, the decisions he made that lead him to leaving like this, without even seeing if I was awake despite my closed eyes, without even saying good bye. But that was his choice. He’d already stayed a night. He was a functional human being, for the most part; he would have things to do. So did I, mind, but I was very good at ignoring them. It was sort of sad when your only talent was avoidance; avoiding parents, work, school.

My head was racing, but I felt myself drifting towards sleep nevertheless.

My front door opened. My front door closed.

Phil came back. All I could do was hope that it was actually Phil, but they were his deliberately soft, yet inherently audible steps, because the man had similar limbs to mine and you could try as much as you wanted to, they would still betray you. He sat next to me on the couch. No thoughts. He opened a book. Oh. That was what he’d left for. 

The only noise in the room was his pen scratching over the page. Apart from that, it was blissful silence. Until Phil forgot that I was next to him for the time being, and his thoughts made their way into my mind. For the first time in my life, I was as quiet as possible because I wanted to listen to someone’s thoughts. It was probably the very last step to being an absolute creep now, but it wasn’t like he was wanking to his dirty fantasies next to me. Not that I knew he had those.

_ Communicating with the flyons turned out to be difficult, just like they’d expected; this wasn’t because of their inherently scary stance though, not even because of any possible language barriers. It was simply difficult because the flyons would not stop laughing at them. They were quite arrogant, really, and maybe they had reason to be. Their fur was soft, their wings were actually useful and their forest was luscious with never-changing conditions of a gentle breeze and soothingly mild temperatures for the fairies’ sun-burnt skin. Still, their beauty, their elegance and their perfect home didn’t make them better than the fairies. _

_ Eliza and Tabitha had messy hair and bright red faces. It was rather likely that leaves in several different colours were stuck to their clothing, which was torn in some places, and dirty in others. They had been travelling for a while, and the water was so scarce it only prevented them from dying of thirst. _

_ Eliza took to sulking. Tabitha crossed her arms in front of her chest. _

_ We need to get to the mountains, and we need your help! Now, could you at least just say no instead of being arrogant, self-righteous-” This is good. Cats are evil. _

I blinked. Oh. Naturally, Phil’s thoughts wouldn’t only be what he was writing, but what he was thinking about it, too. So we were both dog people. Yet another point of Phil-trivia in my mind that was useless until he actually told me face to face.

_ Thunder rolled over the forest. The trees made way for wind, bending under an invisible force. The flyons stopped laughing immediately. Suddenly, the leader of the group shrieked as he was lifted up in the air by - HANDS? GIANT HANDS? GIANT HANDS FLOATING IN THE AIR?! _

Luckily for me and my heart, the writing immediately morphed into thoughts here. Not that I got scared by floating hands lifting up some imaginary creatures with silly names that were based on cats but really flying lions, judging by those silly names. I watched horror movies. Maybe I didn’t sleep much for the week after, but then again I never really slept much.

_ Do I need to explain those are humans or not? It’s cooler this way, if people have to think about it, but I like the idea that cats really live in two worlds and they’re those majestic creatures in one a lot, so everyone should know. An author’s note? No. _

_ Humans,” the group gasped. “They’ve come to play.” _

_ Whatever play was, it sounded terrifying to the two fairies. They watched in horror as the hands, labelled humans, started petting the flyons, grabbing more of them. More and more hands appeared. _

_ I want a dog. But they’re not allowed here, and I can’t afford living anywhere else. I might not even be able to afford living here for much longer. Why does money have to be such an issue in this world. Why can’t we all just do what we’re happy with, and that’s enough? Dogs are also expensive. I don’t want to be thinking about how expensive dogs are, I want to be thinking about how cute they are. The shelter will have to do for a while, at least until- _

The thoughts cut off. No. 

My phone vibrated somewhere in my close vicinity. The noise startled me. I couldn’t feign sleep anymore. I pretended to wake up. Where had I dropped my phone? When had I even had it last? My searching eyes first found a tired-looking Phil. He immediately smiled at me. I smiled back without even making an effort, but my mind was screaming at me how fake I was. I didn’t deserve his smiles, and I knew that. My phone was on the ground next to the couch. I grabbed it. Thirteen per cent battery. Oh well. It was enough to read the text that was the final knife in my chest.

“Howell, you’re too unreliable for the job. We can’t pay you for your lousy work, I warned you before. Consider the arrangement annulled. Becky”

Oh, awesome. It looked like I had lost my job. I couldn’t blame them. I had been doing a lousy job, it was true. I wasn’t angry.

But this meant that my last chance of living independently from my parents had blown up, vanished into thin air. I couldn’t work in a grocery store, or in any place with many people passing through. Shopping was torture already. I had no qualifications, safe for my A-Levels, which admittedly hadn’t been too bad, they’d gotten me into law school after all, but that was all A-Levels did. They were useless, mostly.

I ignored Phil’s presence and moved down to the floor, lying face-first on the goddamn carpet that covered this entire apartment. The landlord probably had carpet on his walls and ceiling, too, judging by how in love he seemed with it. It was vile. I still put my face on it.

“Dan?” Phil asked. He sounded understandably concerned.

“Mmm,” I groaned.

“Why are you on the floor?” He shifted on the couch. His voice came closer.

I pondered this question for a moment. I had a long history with floors, and lying on them face-first. For some reason, they appealed more to me when I was having a crisis than any other, objectively more comfortable surface.

“I lost my job,” I mumbled into the carpet.

“What?” Phil’s voice was still closer.

“I lost my job,” I repeated, turning my head so that now my right cheek was pressed into the carpet and Phil would understand. I hadn’t expected to be met with bright blue eyes immediately. This was turning into a far too common occurrence. “Jesus.”

“Sorry,” Phil breathed, moving backwards. “That sucks, losing your job.”

We were quiet for a moment. This turned into a very long moment. It turned into almost five minutes. I had to tell him about the mind-reading. If I wanted to talk to him about why losing my job was so bad, even though it had been a shitty job with a shitty boss and, on the rare occasions that I ran into them, shitty coworkers, he had to know. I sat up with great effort. It was almost symbolic. Him, on the couch, looking down at me with slightly furrowed eyebrows, his notebook discarded next to him; me, on the ground, staring up at him, probably with carpet marks on my cheeks. A director couldn’t have staged it better. I was convinced sometimes that my life was a reality tv show, but they would’ve honestly fired me long ago, because I was not interesting.

“I have something very absurd to say,” I started. I tried to get the words out, I really did, but they were stuck at the back of my throat. I felt them sit there, dark, heavy stones weighing me down, and suddenly I was coughing again. Great. Awesome.

I couldn’t do it. There was no way he’d take it well. There was no way he wouldn’t deliver me straight to the psychiatric ward. While I was still coughing, images flashed through my mind, of eleven year-old Dan, who knew what it was that made him different now, who knew better than to spill other people’s secrets, who still trusted his parents despite their horrible thoughts, who believed that somewhere underneath, they loved him and would love him no matter what. Telling them had caused their worst fight. They didn’t believe him. They thought he was making it up, desperate for attention. They thought he was a lunatic.

This was where he became me, where we were the same. They still thought I was a lunatic. They knew they’d raised a failure of a son. I never confided in them again.

Their fight back then had been about me; but also about them. I hadn’t been able to hear their thoughts. That time, it had been their words reaching my ears, their shouts. The ear-shattering noise of my father’s hand colliding with my mother’s cheek. The stunned silence.

I couldn’t do it. Phil handed me a glass of water when I’d finished hacking up my lungs. I gulped it down.

“Sorry,” I croaked.

“It’s okay,” Phil assured me, as I knew he would. He was looking at me expectantly. “What’s the absurd thing, then? Only if you feel like you can speak. Do you want more water?”

“No, thank you.” I heard myself speaking in a quiet voice, but internally, I was far too busy panicking. I couldn’t do it, I couldn’t do it. My subconscious was simultaneously better and worse than my conscious thoughts at managing a precarious situation. Better, as it actually did something to handle it instead of wildly staring into space and running into walls head-first. Worse, as the actions it decided seldom solved the situation. Most of the time, they just made it worse. In horror, I listened to myself speak.

“Look, we’re both poor, I can’t afford my rent, you can’t afford yours, let’s split and share one flat, I know it’s a bad idea, I’ll sleep on the couch, I’ll…”

I ran out of ideas, which was probably good, because knowing me, any further ideas would have ended up far worse than this one. I almost didn’t dare to look at Phil, but I did. He didn’t seem offended.

“Obviously I’ll pay for your stuff,” I rushed. “My things are mostly broken or just plain shitty but- I have a functioning laptop, it’s old but you can use until I fixed yours, and I have lightbulbs, and…”

Well, the only good thing that could be said about my failed monologues was that I didn’t start crying halfway through. Or after. I didn’t cry at all. I came close to it, yes, but I did not want Phil’s decision to be based upon his pity for me. I hated myself enough for putting this pressure on him. I normally would have freaked out about making myself vulnerable to him, too, but we were far past that point.

“Dan, calm down,” he finally said, smiling softly. Always this soft smile. It was just like fate and its twisted view of enjoyment to combine sharp cheekbones and a soft smile in one person, and make that person stupidly perfect. Maybe I gotten a little too agitated. My face felt very warm, even disregarding the part where I probably still had a fever. “Don’t work yourself up in this state. I think it’s a good idea. I’m broke, you’re broke, there needs to be more three am Mario Kart and I know you won’t break any more of my stuff, I know you must have had a reason. No reason to freak out. I don’t think you’re a freak. Come on, let’s write an email to the landlord.”

I was at a complete loss for words. Complete, utter, total. It registered with me after about twenty seconds of staring at each other that Phil was expecting me to react to his proposition.

“Okay,” I croaked.

“Are you sure? I don’t want you to feel pressured, we barely know each other, I know personal space is important-”

“Phil,” I interrupted. “It was my idea. I suggested this in the first place. You’re the one who gets to decide.”

“Oh,” Phil mumbled. “Right.”

I watched him think. Watching someone think, knowing they were thinking about you, was pure agony, especially when their expression was inscrutable. Phil’s eyes and nose were slightly scrunched up, and I couldn’t tell what he was thinking, couldn’t rely on his words that he thought it was a good idea. People rarely said what they thought. But I would have to rely on his words. I didn’t have any other choice. My hands were shaking. I hooked them into my shirt, willing myself to be calm, to be quiet, to give him space to think.

I couldn’t bear it.

“Listen Phil, I can’t hear your thoughts if they involve me, please give me a heads-up on what’s going on in that brain of yours,” I burst out, and wow, I’d done it. All this effort, this embarrassment, to not tell him, and then this? I had to screw up. Moments like these really assured me that i was smart enough for university. Not.

Phil laughed.

“Sorry, sorry, I got sidetracked thinking about how to rearrange my things so that yours would fit, I didn’t mean to worry you. My flat is nicer, probably, but I mean, if you’d rather stay here, we can do that, too.”

He blushed. He was lying. Was he lying? Phil didn’t lie, he never lied to anyone, and if he did, they were nice lies, and he still beat himself up about it. I couldn’t tell. It was fucking frustrating me.

“My flat is a piece of shit,” I stated drily. He grinned tentatively. “But so am I. Are you sure you’re fine with me moving in with you?”

“You’re not a piece of shit,” he protested. “And I’m writing that email now, before we worry about each-other’s well-being for another hour. We’ll figure it out along the way. I’ve always wanted a roommate!”

He sounded so genuinely excited. I knew he had; knew he felt lonely. It was the final push over the edge of my doubts. I swallowed hard. There was no taking back this decision. What the hell had I gotten myself into?

Phil Lester would be the death of me at some point. I was in far too deep.


	5. Five

My head was pounding. I wasn’t sick anymore. It was Wednesday, and my health had returned to me right on time for Monday. All I had done to cause this headache was spend the day at uni. It was only four pm, and I was utterly drained. The five flights of stairs up to my apartment felt like Mount Everest. I was rewarded for my superhuman efforts even before I could start fishing the key out of my pocket.

_ I wonder if the FBI gets alerted specifically when someone opens incognito mode. They’ll just laugh at me and my stupid questions. Why am I even thinking about the FBI? This is England. How many times have I googled how to spell necessary? One collar, two sleeves. One collar, two sleeves. _

I snorted to myself in the empty hallway, then proceeded to finally unlock my door. My bag went flying into the corner of the hallway that would have indents in the walls sooner or later. I didn’t have to check my fridge to know what food options I had. Option, rather. I had bought a giant package of ramen. I needed a new job.

My water was boiling when the constant background chatter of Phil’s thoughts in my mind stopped all of a sudden. This had been happening regularly over the last few days. Most of the time, the thoughts came back about three minutes later. On this Wednesday afternoon, I didn’t get to make any further progress with my highly scientific research on the average amount of time it took for a thought to be so disconnected from a past thought involving me that I could hear it again. Everything I did was highly scientific, with me and my C- in maths. Thirty seconds after the start of the silence, there was a knock on my door.

I dragged myself back through the kitchen and the hallway to open it. No, that wasn’t the truth. I was intrigued enough for my energy to return to me. I hadn’t made any sound I was aware of that indicated me being home. My hallway was dark, my head was throbbing, and the door opened with an obnoxious creaking noise that I, with my non-existent trades skills, could not get rid of.

Phil waltzed into my flat with a bright smile on his face and a half-empty mug of coffee in his hand. He was wearing pyjama pants and a t-shirt with tiny dogs on it.

“Your fringe is straightened,” he remarked, instead of a greeting. This was indeed the first time he saw me with my straightened hair by some malevolent twist of fate. I had forgotten. My cheeks started heating up. “Looks good on you.”

He knew precisely how to set my cheeks on fire. A lighter couldn’t have worked any better.

“Yeah,” I mumbled. I felt the desperate need to explain myself. Our hair looked so identical. His only looked better. Stupid naturally straight hair. “I always do? Except when I’m sick. Or having an existential crisis and just going to buy some cheap bulk food at Tesco’s and not expecting to run into my neighbour just three steps from my door.”

“Wow, apparently our first meeting left a lasting impression on you.” Phil grinned. He made his way over to the kitchen and sank down on the only chair like this was his home. I found myself not minding this intrusion. What I did mind though was acting like a schoolgirl with a crush in front of Phil because I didn’t know how this entire having friends thing worked. Nonchalance was key, wasn’t it? For one reason or another, I didn’t think that high school social structure was a good indicator for anything except maybe for prison. But denial always worked well.

“It scarred me,” I retorted, making eye-contact only because I wanted it to be crystal clear that this was very much ironic and there was absolutely no flirting intended. “For life.”

Phil laughed. I turned around to make the water boil again. My stomach needed those ramen noodles. My body probably needed some entirely different nutrients, but I couldn’t care about that, too. Besides, wasn’t unhealthy living one of the key elements to being a student at university?

“Anyways,” he then said. “I hope you’re not too traumatized, because that isn’t even what I wanted to talk to you about! I have news!”

I didn’t turn around, but now he seemed to actually be waiting for an answer before he was going to tell me about those news he had. The water was boiling. I threw the ramen into the pot. This was easier than having to wash the bowl and the pot. Then, leaving them to soak on the stove, I turned around very slowly. A little too slowly, maybe. Phil snorted.

“The landlord has agreed!” He then announced, obviously convinced that he’d created enough suspense in a twenty second pause. I tried to keep a straight face, I really did. Now that I wasn’t sick, delirious and constantly on pain killers anymore, I was trying to recover some of my dignity. Whoever was in charge its distribution wasn’t having it. An obnoxiously wide smile spread on my face. It actually hurt my cheeks. But who was I kidding. My mood immediately improved by seven hundred percent.

“Ahhh,” was all I could get out. Wasn’t I articulate. Phil didn’t mind. In any case, the sentiment behind my exclamation had been clear.

“I know, right? We can start moving your stuff right now, he said he’d come by sometime tomorrow and check out if you left the apartment in a good state. You’ve packed most of your things, haven’t you?”

On Monday, when I’d been healthy, but neither motivated enough to straighten my hair nor quite in a state to return to uni, I had set out to fix Phil’s laptop. It had taken me about two hours, as opposed to the two minutes that I had spent downloading the virus, but it was at least one mountain off my chest. A planet-sized mountain at that. Phil, meanwhile, had being looking over my shoulder for the majority of this time. When he wasn’t awkwardly hovering behind my back, he was either making more hot chocolate, or working to empty out his big suitcase, which he used instead of a storage cupboard because the apartments of this building were suboptimal in every definition. It was this suitcase that he had presented me with to move my things. It had been in the corner of my room for two days now, emitting light rather than just reflecting it judging by the brightness of the lime green case.

“Yeah,” I replied. “Just the TV left, really, my toothbrush and about three food.”

It took us literally ten minutes, including the time spent struggling with a regular sized TV that my parents had given me three years ago because we couldn’t figure out which cords we needed to unplug in order to not break anything, to move all of my stuff. It wasn’t like my family was super-poor; rather that they were extremely shitty and I did not want to have to rely on them.

Of course I was being dramatic and I knew it. My entire life could have been summarized in one sentence. First Dan was born, then he spent about twenty years being dramatic and having an ongoing crisis prompted by nothing but a chemical imbalance in his body, destroying his entire life that could’ve been perfectly ordinarily upper-middle-class if he wasn’t such a weeb who preferred starving to having to face his deceitful parents, and then he died under ridiculous circumstances because Death had enough of his half-hearted calls. Admittedly, it was a long sentence. And a depressing one.

“Dan?”

I blinked at Phil, and slowly came back to where I had left my body. Which was about a metre away from Phil’s door. It was a good thing I gained control over my limbs again at a slow pace, because otherwise I would’ve dropped my stack of video games and movies immediately. Phil was leaning against his doorframe, looking unreasonably attractive and reasonably concerned. He cleared his throat.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah, sure, sorry, I spaced out for a moment there,” I rushed to say. My cheeks were now perpetually assuming a not-so-subtle shade of red. Quickly, I took the two steps into Phil’s apartment, and then dumped my stuff in the living room, where the suitcase and my TV were already residing comfortably. They looked about as out of place as I felt, which was a lot. I shifted uncomfortably. The comfortable awkwardness we had progressed to over the course of the last few days had somehow vanished into thin air. Or gone on holiday to India or something. I just hoped it would be back.

“I, um, will go lock my apartment then?”

“Yeah, yeah, do that! I was thinking about something actually.” He paused for a second, but luckily he didn’t make me wait. I might have killed him. Or myself, rather. I hated apprehension. “We should get cake! Let’s have a celebratory picnic in the living room.”

I released my breath. That actually sounded really nice. Childish, yes; a picnic in the living room, cake that would probably end up having to be a cheap supermarket cake. It was a Phil idea. Also, it was an undeniably good idea. Nothing like ridiculous ideas to resolve unbearable tension. Nothing like an inside-picnic to make the air feel less heavy.

“Sounds good.” My soft voice surprised the both of us. I unfit-person-sprinted to the door with my apartment key in hand. When I came back, Phil had put on jeans and was holding his wallet. The grin on his face made it impossible not to smile back.

“I might have come into some money lately,” he announced.

This would have sounded shady to any flatmade just moving in except for me; simply because I knew that his source of extra income wasn’t being a hitman or a massive drug dealer. I was fairly sure he was neither of those things. His money had come from a very generous Paypal donation for the newest chapter of Kingdom of Oxin, which he had spent ten minutes straight fretting over. Maybe more, I didn’t know, it was when my own person somehow gotten involved in the thought process. Already, I couldn’t exactly tell him that I knew all these things. I feigned surprise.

In a way, Phil and I were the perfect match as roommates. I was a terrible liar; he was a terribly trusting person.

“Oh?”

“Yes,” he said. “I’m gonna need most of it for boring adult stuff like rent and my addictions to warm water, electricity, and not making my parents poorer than they already are, but some of it can and will be spent on cake.”

“We’re getting real,” I observed. Phil’s eyes were so blue. There was so much light in them, in this ocean of joy and hope, that it was easy to overlook the dark spots. When eyes shone so brightly, people tended to forget that those eyes’ pupils were black, too. Phil shrugged.

“That’s where you’re wrong, friend,” he declared dramatically. “We’re getting fantastical.”

I snorted, not sure if that voice had been supposed to be Willy Wonka, and if so, why, and if not so, how he had managed to do this scarily accurate imitation on accident. What the hell had I signed myself up for? Firstly, a chocolate cake, apparently, and even an extra tub of chocolate frosting, which was commonly accepted as the best thing in the world. If people of the world were less intent on their differences, and if our planet were in possession of a worldwide constitution as a step further from just a world wide web, chocolate frosting would have for sure just been a general human right. For now, there was more of an understandable focus on rights to education and not being killed, but those laws didn’t seem to be doing much.

Phil’s way of thinking was rubbing off on me. When I shared my thoughts with him on our short way back to the apartment that I didn’t dare call my home yet, he simply nodded solemnly and started telling me about his theory that it was eventually going to be the elephants who would save us all. I saw his point for a moment, even felt the eureka approaching, until I remembered just how good a storyteller this Phil Lester was, how well he knew to enchant his audience, provided they were ready to listen to him.

It was light outside when we were back at the apartment, early still on an Indian summer night like this. It felt like three am to me when we were settled down on a soft blanket in the living room, right in front of the worn sofa, but not on it because then it wouldn’t have been a picnic anymore. My hands were clasped around a hot chocolate that just melted away any remaining tension from my insides. I couldn’t stop smiling in my delirium, my three-am-dizziness before sundown, my sugar high before we had even cut the cake or opened the tub of frosting.

Was this what having a friend felt like? Did I have a friend? We were friends, weren’t we? Shit, I didn’t have any idea how to do friendship. When did you know you were friends? Who defined if the feeling of friendship was mutual, and who classified different stages of friendship? Was there a certain amount of information you had to share, experiences or adventures? I swallowed hard.

“...what do you say?” Phil looked at me like he was expecting me to say something. I had no idea what he’d said.

“You space out a lot, don’t you?” He chuckled. “I asked if you wanted to watch a movie while we eat our cake, or rather listen to music? We could put on the new Muse album, or you can choose, I don’t really mind anything.”

“Sorry,” I blurted. The liquid in my cup splashed dangerously with my hasty movement, but no drop of hot chocolate made it over the edge. Yet another one of tonight’s miracles. Phil hadn’t even noticed. He had gotten up and marched over to the kitchen. I called after him.  “No, a movie sounds great! Did you have one in mind already?”

“Well, would you prefer something funny, or scary, or more superhero-style?” His head peaked out of the doorway only for a second. I could hear rustling in the background.

“Anything works for me, this is your place.”

When he showed up next, he was holding a massive knife and two mismatched spoons. I shuffled a bit further away from the cake, just to be sure. In this dim light, I did not trust Phil Lester with a knife as menacing as the one he was carrying towards the blanket. He made it safely.

“Our place now,” he reminded me gently. Yeah, right. For now, I was in Phil’s debt, a beggar, a wretch inhabiting his living room. He could tell me otherwise a million times. In his kindness, he would probably treat a serial killer better than others treated their own family. I didn’t reply to his empty words. Instead, I opted to search his movie collection.

“Howl’s Moving Castle,” I exclaimed. “My favourite Miyazaki movie. You have good taste, Lester.”

“Let’s watch it,” Phil decided. He got up immediately to put the DVD in. I blushed.

“I didn’t mean to run you over like that.” It was a miracle he even heard the words that barely reached my own ears.

“It’s my favourite, too,” he assured me. I wished I could’ve really been sure. Phil Lester, the most moral man I knew, was making me lose all of my own. I wanted to read his mind, although it was so wrong, so damn wrong. He chuckled. “Howell’s Moving Castle.”

I rolled my eyes at his back, then decided that the pun had been so bad it didn’t even deserve a reaction, and busied myself trying to get the lid off the frosting, which proved harder than I’d thought it would. It wasn’t my fault they sealed that stuff so tightly. My arms were just fine. It didn’t stop Phil, who had barely stopped having some kind of laugh on his lips ever since he’d come prancing into my apartment earlier, from laughing at me. My old apartment. It occurred to me briefly that I should have at least informed my parents of the move. I filed this intrusive thought away in a very dusty cupboard of my mind somewhere. There was no hurry to do that. It wasn’t like I’d gotten a landline to work, anyways. It wasn’t like I had moved terribly far away.

There was something special about the night, something inherently comfortable about sitting next to Phil and watching this movie. Yet again, pop culture had deceived me; even though I was well familiar with Howl’s Moving Castle, having only seen it about a thousand times, I got to see it for the one thousand and first time tonight, instead of being constantly aware of Phil’s presence next to me. Or maybe I was, just like he was of mine; all night I didn’t hear a single thought. Not one managed to escape the filter that was my own personal purgatory. Not hell. Hell was the mind-reading itself. But Phil’s presence wasn’t all-consumingly intoxicating, distracting; he was just there, eating frosting out of the same tub as I was, and somehow making things seem lighter, brighter in the ever-darkening room as the sun set.

We barely talked at all that night, only when the end-credits were already rolling and I was drowsy as much as hyperactive from the sugar, in a giggly state, and when everything about the room seemed suddenly doused in pale colours in the gleam of Phil’s eyes. There was something about them that enticed me to stare into them, that made me want to paint them even though I had never voluntarily touched a paintbrush in my life, made me want to change the colour of the sky to theirs. I was glad I wasn’t actually drunk. Sugar, although it made my cheeks rosy and my laughs uninhibited, didn’t succeed in tearing down all of my walls. It left me control over my limbs and vocal cords at least.

I was on the couch half an hour later with clean teeth and a stupid smile on my face that wouldn’t wash away, under my own bedsheets, in my own clothes, and yet feeling so profoundly different that I wondered if everything could possibly still be the same in the rest of the universe. It seemed absurd to me that the Earth was still in its orbit around the sun, that the other planets hadn’t strayed from their tracks, that the sun was still shining, lending its light to the other side of our rocky little spaceship, where people were going about their regular daily business now. I had always been convinced that before I made a friend, the universe would come to an end.

Maybe it already had, secretly, slyly. Maybe Phil wasn’t my friend after all, just my flatmate for convenience. I didn’t know what to feel. I didn’t need to feel anymore.

Sleep hadn’t come to me this easily, this early, in as long as I could remember.

 

Six tiresome hours in lecture halls broke the spell. University had also managed within a week and a half to break my last ounce of self-esteem, my brain, and two of my pencils. It was an excellent metaphor, or maybe just a sad truth; I wasn’t in school for literature. But if breaking students down to their cores, breaking them into pieces so tiny that piecing them back together was building a sand castle and calling it a stone, was necessary so they could fit into society, could fit with the adults, was this even a society that I wanted to be accepted into?

The inconspicuous hallway separating the door to what was still technically my flat from Phil’s door had to be renamed ‘hallway of doom’, I was sure of it. It was where, lost in thought about starting an alternative society consisting of me, myself and I somewhere in the hills of Wales, I almost collided with my landlord. It was simple luck that we didn’t actually crash into each other; I doubted that this grumpy man, on whom I had about two feet of height, would have caught me as forgivingly as Phil had when I inevitably would have fallen. It didn’t get this far, although it was a narrow miss.

“Sorry, sir!” I stumbled into the wall instead. Way to make a good impression, Dan. He had to think I was drunk at four in the afternoon on a Thursday. I felt my cheeks catch fire.

“Watch where you’re going, son,” he grumbled. “Kids these days, I swear.”

Oh god.

“I was just taking a look at the apartment you decided to vacant,” he announced then. “I gather you live over there now.”

“Yeah, um, me and Phil, uh, Mr. Lester and I, we were both a little short on rent,” I hurried to explain. “So we thought we’d pitch in together.”

“I hope there are no indecent activities going on in there?” I barely perceived that he raised his eyebrow, there were so many wrinkles on his face. What a homophobic dick. Sadly, I was a coward, and the truth just catered to my wish of avoiding conflict. I wish I could’ve hit him in the face with a bisexual pride flag, but I didn’t generally carry those.

“No, like, we barely know each other.” That wasn’t the helpful part of the truth. Which idiots moved in together when they barely knew each other? Or at least Phil didn’t know me, and was unaware how much I knew about him, which was fucking worse. “We’re friends.”

“Good, good,” he wheezed. I needed to get out of this situation before I could implode. “Did you clean out your apartment, then?”

“Yes, yes, it’s empty, I didn’t actually bring a lot of things, I-” I just managed to cut myself off before the rambling started.

“Uh-huh,” he commented condescendingly, trying to be menacing while he was staring up at me, and kind of succeeding to my dismay. “Do you work?”

“No, sir, I’m at university. Law.”

“Well, you’ll be familiar with contracts then. Sign this, and be so kind to provide me with the keys. Won’t have you just sleeping over there when there’s trouble in paradise, aye?”

Not being an idiot didn’t have a lot to do with one week of law classes, nothing really did except the horror of impending more stress to follow because professors classified the worst week of my life as an easy start, but I didn’t contradict the old bigot. I simply made a point of reading all of the small print on the contract, and then getting out my fanciest pen to sign it. I had my pride. Most of a time, I had far more pride than dignity and just ended up being ridiculous. This time though, the landlord finally appeared to feel like there was nothing else he could reproach me for.

“That would be all, then.”

“Have a nice day, sir,” I said flatly, then bolted to Phil’s door and practically glided through it. In reality, of course, I unlocked it, opened it, stumbled through and then shut it behind me, careful not to make it loud, but all of this happened so fast that I may as well just have transcendent into a dimension where doors were no barrier for me. I was shaking.

I wanted to busy myself with unpacking until Phil came back, I really did; I felt so useless already, I didn’t want to spend the next seventeen hours on tumblr just feeling more and more useless as I scrolled through aesthetic blogs and original creative content that I would never achieve with my reblogging and never even sticking to a theme. I got as far as fitting my games on the shelf were Phil’s sat. It was official. I had just signed a very real contract. There was no way of going back.

My games looked like they were intruding, taking up all the space, making the shelf look small and crammed and like there was something wrong, something missing although really there were too many things on there. I organized them by their colours, then gave up and went to the bathroom. My toothbrush screamed at me.

Not literally. If my toothbrush had literally screamed at me, I would’ve once and for all been a definitive case for the psych ward. But it was screaming ‘wrong’, just like the games had, sitting there next to Phil’s, taking his space.

With every thing in the flat there was less space for air. I suddenly realized my breathing was shallow. I opened the windows. Fresh air from the street blew in, or rather new air; calling the air of London fresh was a stretch a lot too far for my inflexible self.

Where was I supposed to put my things when all space was occupied? When everything looked like it belonged?

Perhaps that was the problem. Phil belonged. Where he went, he belonged, because he belonged to himself and the world inside of him that streamed out from every pore of his body, making him float slightly, making him different, unique, like the sun. Even when he was sad, when his body was but a black silhouette, he was the sun during a solar eclipse, the full body halo never leaving him. I never belonged. I hovered, I watched, I came and I went and I never landed, never had an impact, always kept my distance. If Phil was a sun, I was a meaningless asteroid.

I didn’t even need tumblr anymore to feel useless now that I could just sit down next to the suitcase and stare at the obnoxious green without doing anything.

What was I doing with my life?

What the hell was I doing with this one life I had that was passing by so fast?

I didn’t move until Phil got home. He found me like this; slouched over on the floor, just staring at the suitcase, barely breathing, barely blinking because sometimes my useless body just forgot to do those things. I didn’t even hear the key turning in the lock.

“Dan? I’m home! A dog was adopted today and- Dan? Are you okay?”

“I was trying to unpack,” I mumbled sheepishly. My entire body was aching.

“That’s a great idea, Dan, but you haven’t even opened the suitcase.” Phil crouched down next to me, trying to get a look at my face. I looked back at him. Avoiding his eyes didn’t work. I gave in. I felt like a child next to him; or maybe a puppy, but nothing about his gaze was condescending.

“Everything just looks weird,” I admitted. “I’m taking your space. My toothbrush doesn’t belong in your bathroom!”

Phil looked slightly taken aback by my exclamation, but he adjusted in the blink of an eye.

“Your toothbrush does belong in  _ our _ bathroom.” His voice was firm. “Dan. Stop freaking out.”

This was easier said than done. I didn’t have very strong nerves. Sometimes I thought I didn’t have any at all. That they had just torn years ago and never been replaced.

“The landlord thought we were fucking,” I blurted.

This time, Phil just laughed. Full on laughed so much that I swear the ground vibrated. It was the most I had moved in what might have been two hours. “So he did show up. It sounds like you’ve had a bit of a day,” he snorted.

I just groaned instead of bothering with an articulate answer. Phil got it.

“Do you want a hug?” Those were the five best words I had heard all day. Phil’s hugs made me forget all of my struggles with close contact to another human. It was a supremely uncomfortable position for the both of us. The pins and needles in my legs were going insane. Phil wasn’t even warm, but there was just this light that he emitted that proved a far more efficient way to transmit energy. He also smelled good, but I wasn’t going to get into that because dreams existed and I was fine with missing out on the realistic ones. Which was also a thing I shouldn’t get into. The hug lasted forever, and also for the time that it took a colibri to bat his wings once.

“Thank you,” I said.

“You’re very welcome. Now, let’s unpack your stuff. Did you organize those games by colour? That shelf hasn’t looked this good since I bought it.”

Unpacking as a joined effort only took half an hour. I ignored the reading I had to do; we made dinner instead. Together, we managed not to overcook the pasta, at least not dramatically.

We had thought we might watch a movie afterwards, but Phil was tired, and his thoughts kept drifting to Kingdome of Oxin so much so that I could hear him while he was on the other side of the sofa. He needed to post an update, and so I feigned tiredness, practically forcing him to retreat to his room. Hadn’t I known that was exactly what he’d wanted, I wouldn’t have done it, but his guiltily relieved face proved me right.

I wasn’t actually tired, just exhausted, with no energy left to do anything other than alternating between playing animal crossing and scrolling through tumblr. It was meditative. No, it just played into my downward spiral. But it felt meditative, and I didn’t care about anything else.

Phil’s thoughts were too messy this night, too often interrupted to enjoy the continuation of Kingdom of Oxin. I was just looking through a blog that was made up solely of sloth videos, which I sadly found very relatable, when he had another one of those thoughts that just made me want to hit myself in the face, jump out of a window and go on an epic quest to discover all the secrets of the universe simultaneously.

_ The moon must feel insignificant because it just borrows light from the sun. Maybe that is why we feel so insignificant. And then we feel great, because the sun is giving its light to us, because maybe in some way we’re worth it. _

Before I knew it, I had logged out of tumblr and was creating a new blog.

I needed someone to share all these thoughts with, just so they could marvel at them, too. The void of the universe was my best shot. At the very least the satellites would see. Hear. Feel. Whatever they did with signals from Earth that they had to keep, that they had to make available for stupid Earthlings again.

I named it dansmindisnotonfire, for lack of a better idea that was available, and for lack of any idea what you were supposed to name a blog like this. Maybe letting it all out could ease the pain of the flames always eating away at my brain a little. Or maybe not.

I went back to playing animal crossing, then. This, at least, was predictable.


	6. Six

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello my friends!  
> here i am with another update. i hope you're happy with the direction this is going.  
> i love every single person who takes time out of their day to read what i've come up with:)  
> now i'll shut up! enjoy!
> 
> (i'm on tumblr as cuddlydreamsonrainydays, too, come talk to me!)

My alarm went off at the ungodly time of half past six am. I hadn’t had to get up this early since I’d graduated high school. It was a gloomy, grey September, and basically pitch black outside the window. I resisted the urge to throw my phone across the room, thinking it the villain, when it was obviously just the messenger. I hated being woken up like this. It was so early that Phil, with this shelter day-job that apparently required feeding the animals and cleaning up long before the place actually opened, was still at home and currently thinking about coffee.

Meanwhile, our new neighbour appeared to still be asleep for a change. During the last two weeks, I had been woken up more often than not by them playing the guitar. It was pleasant most of the time, since they were good at it, and my sleep only grew light enough for me to hear the melodies around ten am. This musical neighbour’s thoughts were quite a bit more realistic than Phil’s, although far from psychopathic from what I could tell. While  a person’s mental voice was different to its spoken counterpart, despite being distinguishable from other people’s mental voices, I had found that accents often stayed. This new neighbour was Australian and I, actively trying not to focus and succeeding far better at not being a stalker than I had with Phil, had become fairly good at not realising the content of their thoughts even when they were playing somewhere at the back of my mind. Neighbour person was rather poetic, as far as I had gathered, and when they were occupied neither with music, nor with what was either poetry or songwriting, they were mostly thinking either about food or sex. This, although often supremely awkward, was something I could relate to.

Five minutes later, I was up. Not quite awake yet, but at least up.

Phil was now thinking about his new citrus shower gel and how it didn’t magically wake him up like the packaging had promised. I didn’t let my thoughts linger for too long on this meaning that he was currently showering. The sound of running water from the bathroom could’ve been another dead giveaway if I had been listening. I did my best to ignore the thoughts, and give my mind something else to work through.

So I finally paid attention to the other, significantly less handsomely shaped, elephant in the room. Not that I was calling Phil an elephant. Although he had said himself that elephants were great. No, he had thought it. Dodging this bullet was becoming harder and harder as I struggled to separate what I was supposed to know from what I wasn’t supposed to know about my flatmate. Elephants weren’t the problem here, and neither were Phil’s obscure thoughts that had by now gotten me over five thousand tumblr followers in just a month of posting what amounted essentially to random suggestions.

I had to remind myself that there was something I needed to acknowledge, no matter how little I wanted to do so. The fact that I was absolutely not prepared for my job interview at Starbucks in a much too short time was looming in the corner over my stack of clothes to wear that I had picked out the day before. They consisted of a freshly ironed black button-down shirt as well as clean black skinny jeans that had been awaiting this occasion since last week’s laundry day. I had even cleaned my best black sneakers so that they were still rather unprofessional shoes, but at least spotless. I wasn’t applying to a suit-and-tie kind of job like any occupation I was heading towards with my law studies, and absolutely could not see myself doing. But back to the giant people-eating company that I was going to sacrifice myself and most importantly my sanity to, and the rapidly approaching interview I dreaded. I would look like a potato just because of who I was as a person, but at least I was fairly sure they couldn’t reproach me for my choice of clothing. I had prepared on that front.

It was emotionally that I wasn’t prepared at all.

Why the fuck had I decided to try and get a job at Starbucks?

It was Phil who loved their drinks, especially the ridiculously sweet and flavoured ones, not me, and he was so obsessed with them that the paypal link in his bio actually said ‘Buy me a pumpkin spice latte’. With all the amazing content he put out there, people regularly did donate little sums to him that could have, in theory, been spent on coffee. Most of it went into rent. Not that I was supposed to know any of this. For the past month, Phil had quietly paid my share along with his. I felt the fangs of shame biting into me every time I lay down on the couch like it was mine, every time I pretended like I had the right to live here now, while still taking up his space without giving him anything in return.

One hateful day a week ago, I had spotted a sign in the Starbucks window that they were hiring. There was a picture of the e-mail address saved to my phone faster than I could think about it. I was desperate. While already just going to university had me dead inside most of the time, it didn’t get me any money and wouldn’t for a long time. I applied for the job.

It was probably the most crowded place I could have picked, and I hated myself for it.

I was reluctant to put on my clothes. They were black, they were mine, and still, nothing felt right about them. But I needed this. I finally needed to jump over my shadow, even if that shadow was a ginormous brick wall with barbed wire all over it.

I also needed to brush my teeth. Phil was still in the bathroom. I went to knock. His thoughts about toothpaste stopped within a split-second.

“Phil? How much longer will you be?” Oh, wow, I hadn’t tried out my voice yet today. I sounded like a half-dead lawn mower, and being honest, that was a rather good description of what I felt like, too. I cleared my throat. What a great start into a day of eloquent speaking and not appearing as Darth Vader.

“Just come in,” he said. At least, that’s what I assumed he said. All I heard were vaguely word-shaped noises. I opened the door. He had to have just stepped out of the shower with his hair still damp, and his green shelter-t-shirt wrinkled all over. The attempted smile around his toothbrush looked closer to a pained grimace. I smiled back at him nevertheless.

Neither of us was talkative in the morning. We had fallen into a routine of not-speaking on the rare days that both of us were home and awake in the morning. He was the one rarely home. I was the one rarely awake. It was pathetic from my side, but it worked, it all worked out. All of this had come to feel so natural, so evidently simple. It was my turn to make an effort for things to stay this way, because I liked this, I liked not being alone all the time, I liked being around someone without feeling the need to talk all the time, I liked this illusion that there might be more good than bad in the world. I appreciated Phil as a friend too much to ever let this go.

It scared me.

I left the house with twenty minutes to go until my interview although Starbucks was only at a walking distance of five minutes. I was completely dressed and smoothed out, had brushed my teeth, made sure my zipper was properly done up, had said about eleven words to Phil and had ensured my voice didn’t sound anymore like I had dropped right out of my bed into the entrance of the café.

The door opened with the ringing of a bell. Warm air slapped me in the face. Inside, it was crowded as hell. I imagined hell to be pretty crowded. With all the alpha males in suits, thinking about their affairs and slimy business partners and racist opinions of one of the baristas, and the alpha women in blazers and perfectly done makeup, thinking about their affairs and their colleagues’ affairs, and uni students looking so organized that I could only assume they had sold their souls to the devil for motivation to study at this time, motivation at all, and enough money to be regulars at Starbucks, I even imagined a crowd in hell to be not much different from this.

Just a regular cut through humanity.

Just a continuing struggle for power and dominance and significance in this fucked world, as presented in a little shop lost in the chain of corporation.

I wanted to back right out and pretend I’d never even showed up. Then, I thought of Phil, of the rent, of warm showers and late night picnics, and dragged my feet to the counter.

_ There is too much milk in this coffee again, I asked for one splash, not two. These workers are so stupid. They don’t deserve to get paid minimum wage. _

_ Doesn’t she realize I have an important meeting in five minutes? _

_ That guy has the ugliest face I’ve ever seen. _

_ Her cleavage is too revealing, she should cover up. I wouldn’t  let my wife go outside this way. Her breasts are for her husband, not everyone to see. Slut. _

I was repulsed by humanity a little more with every step that I took deeper into this caffeine-scented pit of hell. I had to physically clench every muscle of my face to make it neutral, to not let it show the sheer disgust I felt towards these people. If uni students in a lecture hall were bad, these adults were worse. Far worse.

“Hello,” I said to a girl behind the counter who was currently wiping some surfaces with a cloth that had seen better days, and having Jason Derulo stuck in her head. She glared at me, but her eyes just looked tired, which, considering the song, was understandable. Luckily, I stopped hearing it now that she had taken notice of me.

“Please stand in the queue like everyone else,” she ordered, and went back to swiping with a slightly more angry face. I got it, I was a dick, too.

“Hello,” I repeated stubbornly. “My name is Dan. I’m supposed to have a job interview.”

She had looked up after I had so unnecessarily introduced myself before telling her what I wanted, looking like she might bite my head off. Her features softened considerably after my clarification. By softening I meant that she was now bored rather than fury itself compressed into a doll. Her contour was on point. Her eyes were bleak, though, a watery blue with nothing interesting behind them.

“Why didn’t you say so sooner. Go over there, get behind here, I’ll show you where you need to go,” she droned.

I followed her instructions mechanically. My legs were about as helpful as giant wooden sticks attached loosely to my hip, so it cost me a lot of effort to make my way past impatiently waiting people and reach the spot she had indicated.

She stood on the other side of the small wooden door, snapping her fingers rhythmically as she waited. It didn’t look like she was even remotely trying to be polite. I disliked her already, just as much as I hated the customers that she disliked as well. This was a prime example of a common enemy not always being sufficient to make people bond.

She turned around wordlessly when I had finally reached her, and gestured over her shoulder for me to follow.

Back where we’re heading, someone was thinking about girls in a really repugnant way, providing me with mental images that made death by bleach sound like a sunny day spent inside because that was the way I liked to spend my sunny days. Brain-bleach was required. Or the police. Possibly both.

It turned creepy sexual predator was my possible future boss, who introduced himself as Richard Asken. I almost puked when he shook my hand. Luckily, I hadn’t had any breakfast. It was the only reason I deemed it safe to open my mouth, greet him and politely introduce myself although that folder on his desk was most likely my overly polished CV, made up to ninety percent of lies.

He had this sleek smile that I always associated with the feeling of hair gel, or skin right after sprinting up four flights of stairs if you were me, because that was enough to produce a thin, yet revolting layer of sweat. I couldn’t exactly complain about his smile though, because from the way the corners of my mouth were begging me for permission to bend downwards, my smile probably made me look like I was going to murder him right this moment. He would’ve deserved it,  much as at least seventy-five percent of the world’s population, possibly more than most.

“Please, do sit down,” he told me in a slimy drawl. “Jacky, get us both a cup of coffee, will you?”

“Sure,” she shrugged. The door fell shut behind her with a muffled bang. I swallowed hard.

“So, Dan,” he said nasally. “Tell me a little about yourself. Not too much, though. This is a job interview for a student job, not a free therapy session.”

“Um,” I said, slightly disconcerted by this introduction. “I study law at university. I, uh, like to watch movies, and…”

I was the worst possible choice for this job. I wasn’t reliable, wasn’t a team player, had no cooking skills whatsoever and despised human interaction. I couldn’t even be trusted with hot liquids ninety percent of the time. What was I supposed to say? Luckily, Jacky’s return broke into the silence. She was carrying two plain black mugs of coffee. Everything was plain black here. That fact should have been comforting to me. It wasn’t, because now I could have belonged, and I should have belonged in this awfully dreary place, if only I’d been semi-normal. If only I hadn’t been cursed.

“Thank you, Jacky.” He smiled sweetly. Too sweetly. Accidentally dump an entire package of sugar in one cup of coffee like Phil had last week - sweet. “Now, Dan, what would your describe as your skills?”

The girl, Jacky, left without saying a word. I was now faced with an even worse question than the previous one. I needed to buy time. So I reached for the coffee.

That turned out to be a bad idea, a terrible one. I misjudged the distance. My hand collided with the handle too harshly, my fingers couldn’t curl around it in time.

I watched what happened in slow motion.

The mug toppled over; the scalding liquid spilled out of it, splashing and rapidly forming a dark puddle. The coffee spread all over the table, slowly to my perception yet unstoppable, soaking stacks of paper, and finally dripped over its edge, right onto my interviewer’s pants. I was frozen in my seat mid-breath.

He jumped up faster than my brain could comprehend, letting out a string of curses that would have made me laugh hadn’t it been directed at me, and hopped around his office with his hands frantically pulling at his crotch. I could only hope that I had scalded his balls and left permanent damage. This disgusting man didn’t deserve to ever get off again to the thought of his friend’s daughter.

“I have reconsidered this decision,” I heard myself say to him before I realized that I had regained my power to speak. His face was bright red, none of his former countenance left. I wasn’t sorry. So maybe that made me a bad person. Maybe it just didn’t matter. Maybe it was just fate slapping me in the face for even trying to get this job as the massive failure that I was, and making it very clear that I wouldn’t be let off the hook this easily. “I don’t think I am fit to work here, seeing as I am a clumsy shut-in with no people skills whatsoever, and I might end up spilling coffee over someone else’s crotch, someone who deserves it less. Consider this time karma! I thank you for your time.”

And with that, I walked out.

As soon as I was out of the door and the cold wind hit me, I realized what I had just done. Oh God. My legs went wobbly now, although the imminent danger was gone, and they’d decided that they’d rather replace their bones with jell-o to make it just a little harder for me to get away from this awful place. I attempted to run, and actually managed to, although every step threatened to make me stumble and kiss the ground. I would pass on that if possible. By now, it was just past eight am. The people in the streets were occupied with themselves, luckily, because they didn’t have to watch my shame as the inevitable happened. I ran into something small and hard, and stumbled, and then my hands found something that felt suspiciously like the arm of a person to hold on to. I didn’t succeed in telling them not to clasp it.

One could have argued that at least I didn’t fall, but it was only a slight comfort here.

A child screamed. That was the first thing I knew when the initial shock past. But the person I was holding on to did not seem like a child, judging by the height their arm was at. And I could only hope it was their arm.

My life would be so much easier if I just thought to look a little more and think a little less. When I finally dared to raise my glance up to face my latest victim, I was met with an overwhelming impression of blonde.

A blonde young woman with a blonde child on the arm that I wasn’t clutching was staring at me with an expression of utter shock on her face. The child was clinging to her, whining, and specifically not looking at me. Both were wearing dresses in a matching purple colour scheme. I had to blink a few times before I had them fully separated in my confusion, and only then hurriedly let go of her arm.

“I’m so sorry,” I finally managed, remembering that words were a thing that could be spoken out loud, not just thought. “I swear, I didn’t mean-”

“No, I’m sorry!” She squeaked. “I didn’t look, I was trying-”

“Oh, it’s my fault, I fell over and knocked down-”

“-to put up my sign.”

“-this sign, your sign?”

It was a giant mess of a conversation. Somewhere in the distance, a loud beeping noise went off. The woman’s eyes widened.

“Hold her,” she told me. Half a second later, I found myself holding a little girl who looked like she might be of the appropriate age to go to kindergarten, and also didn’t look very happy with the general situation, and staring after a whirl of purple disappearing behind the closest door inside.

The sign I had fallen over, that was apparently the woman’s, read ‘Sprinkle of Glitter Bakery’. Slowly, the puzzle pieces were coming together.

In my arms, the girl had gotten over her shock. She now began whining softly. I had no clue what to do. I wasn’t good with children. I didn’t know this child. I didn’t know her name, I didn’t know her mother’s name, I hadn’t introduced myself, and I had most likely been storming along the sidewalk like a homicidal maniac with some kind of tendency to flail his arms dangerously. This woman had to be mad in order to just make me hold her daughter like that. Or, if it wasn’t her daughter, her little sister, or her friend’s daughter, her partner’s daughter, or her niece, or her cousin. Whoever the girl was, the woman had been taking care of her.

She obviously had no idea of all the very real evils in the world that would rise cackling at the opportunity.  We were all bad people, but while everyone was on the same step down, deep down in the moral basement, with most people still shouting from the rooftop pretentiously, it was a wide step, and I wasn’t standing in the child-abuser part of it. Still, I could not be trusted with children, even if I wouldn’t hurt them intentionally.

This was amounting to a day of permanent internal freaking out. I couldn’t deal with anything this early. It was so early that the sun hadn’t fully risen, and I wanted nothing more than to crawl back into bed.

I swayed her back and forth experimentally. She didn’t struggle in my arms, only whined. Was this a normal procedure for her? Because I was fairly sure that every regular child would’ve run away screaming, or would’ve been hitting and kicking me by now, on good instincts. This one seemed fine just with whining. She didn’t stop doing so at my swaying her helplessly, didn’t even seem bothered by it.

I picked up the sign and ventured into the bakery before anyone could accuse me of kidnapping a child. Immediately, I was surrounded by an abundance of pastel colours and an overwhelming smell of butter, sugar, and more delicious smells. The shelves, the small tables, the counter, baked goods were everywhere. Every surface that wasn’t covered with them was sprinkled in glitter. The place surely lived up to its name. I just stood there for a moment, letting my eyes adjust to the colours and the sheer amount of small lights that were everywhere. The little girl was still softly whining into my shoulder.

“Hey,” I said slowly. It did not come out soothing. I, as a child, would’ve been afraid of myself. “Hey, hey. What’s your name, little girl?”

She sniffled, looked at me with a pouty face. My weak arms were growing sore. A four-year-old toddler was far larger than a baby.

“Darcy,” she mumbled with eyes wide open. They were large and brown and a lot too trusting for my taste. “You’re pretty. What’s your name?”

I thought it excusable at this point that I needed a moment to respond, even though the question was arguably the easiest one there was.

“Dan,” I finally said. The strain on my pathetic arm muscles was approaching the point where it would start making me sweat. The additional embarrassment was something I really didn’t want to have to deal with. “I’m Dan. It’s nice to meet you, Darcy. You’re pretty yourself. I like your dress.”

“Thank you. My momma bought it for me,” she smiled. With my arms finally giving in, I carefully sat her down on one of the high tables. She didn’t seem to mind. I remembered small children as quite a bit more anxious, but then again, my experience with them didn’t count for anything. I cleared my throat.

“Do you know where your momma went?”

“The cake was ready,” Darcy informed me very seriously. She was toying with the hem of her dress. I caught myself with my fingers on the hem of my own shirt. “It beeps before it burns. That’s good, because momma always forgets.”

“True words,” the woman in question announced. She was now wearing an apron over her dress. It was positively covered in flour. “Hi, my name is Louise Pentland. Please call me Louise, and I’m terribly sorry I just handed you my daughter like this. My body goes its own ways sometimes.”

“Oh, believe me, I know that feeling,” I laughed, sounding like a dying horse and immediately regretting it. I took a step back from Darcy on the table hastily. My eyes darted around the room, looking anywhere but at Louise. “Dan Howell. I… like your bakery.”

I was going to say some other polite thing and then make my way back outside, because what was I still doing here, when I spotted the tabby grey cat sitting peacefully on the windowsill, and when I, in essentially the very same second, realized it was pouring outside. So I just bit my lip, not daring to go pet the cat, not really wanting to leave the cosy, warm space in this weather. Of course I hadn’t thought to bring a jacket. What was I, organized? No. I had an image to adhere to, even if that image was only in my mind.

“Oh, you should stay a while!” Louise called. “I’ve just opened the bakery, and am still stuck with about five customers per day. You look like you could use to be fed a little. Those collarbones- I should stop, shouldn’t I?”

“Um,” I said. My hand flew to my freakish collarbones. They were even more prominent than usually, that was true. I still didn’t know what to reply. There was an awkward pause. “It would be really kind of you to let me stay here until the rain has stopped, but I didn’t bring any money. I can’t really spend any money on cake at the moment, or cookies, or bakery-bread, or…”

“Listen, it’s on the house. On my grandma. And don’t you dare offend her,” Louise basically shouted at me. I drew back slightly, raising my hands in front of my chest on reflex to defend myself, although if she was trying to kill me here, it was by kindness, and I could live with that. Or not, obviously. But dying was still something I wasn’t ill-disposed towards.

We both just stood there in the silence that was now solid matter all throughout the room.

“Okay,” she stuttered. I watched her take a deep breath. “Not to make any assumptions here, but it’s been three minutes of our acquaintance, we have crashed together and had two mostly failed conversations, so I’m guessing this awkwardness is mutual? Just, let me offer you some cake. Or something else, if you’re not a cake-person, although that might make me withdraw the offer. Just kidding. Everyone’s welcome here. And when I say my grandma is paying, that’s because I inherited this place. So, don’t stress it, just sit down. Or something. Stand, if you want to.”

“The awkwardness is definitely mutual,” I agreed, and found myself smiling. I hadn’t heard her thoughts yet, I reminded myself. I needed to be careful. The more friends I made, the higher the probability of me getting disappointed rose. Right now though, it was just cake in a far too colourful and yet somehow soothing space. The floor was wooden. Who had a wooden floor in a bakery in rainy London? And the light installation was stunning. “And you won’t find a universe where I’ll say no to free cake offered to me by someone who doesn’t try to reason around my awkwardness, if they even bother to be kind. Not to be rude, but can I pet your cat? I just spilled coffee down my interviewer’s pants trying to get a job at Starbucks, and-”

She burst out laughing, and started apologizing profusely with the next breath - while still wheezing and almost doubling over. I just stared.

Okay, maybe it was a funny story. A little bit. She looked like she needed a moment, so I went to sit on the cushioned windowsill and pet the cat. Its fur was perfectly soft, just like the purring noise it made when it realized it was being pet, and I relished the feeling. Animals were good. I couldn’t read their thoughts. I just couldn’t be trusted with those, either. If I was to get a pet, I was fairly sure it would be dead within a week, having eaten something poisonous I left lying around or trampled by me. My stomach grumbled, then, reminding me I still hadn’t eaten anything today. Louise had ceased laughing. She was just apologizing now, and frankly, I was too intimidated to say anything for a few long seconds. At one point though, I decided it had been enough, especially since I was quite partial to that offer of free cake, the sooner the better and my stomach was grumbling in shorter intervals now.

“It’s fine,” I began, loudly as well, because Louise was being loud, and I had no voice control. Darcy interrupted me, tugging at her mother’s sleeve with furrowed eyebrows. She was staring at me with the intensity that only a toddler could manage.

“Momma, Dan is hungry. He thinks about food. He no eat breakfast today! You say always breakfast is important!”

I was not sure if I trusted my ears on this one. Maybe I had transcended into dream dimension by petting this cat. Could it be true?

“Darcy, I told you not to make up people’s thoughts, you don’t know what they are thinking! Sorry, Dan, she’s been playing this game ever since she learned how to speak, it’s her favourite, and I can’t talk it out of her. Honestly, I let her listen to the radio and watch TV too much, the words she knows!” Louise looked at me apologetically. I was starting to permanently associate this expression with her face. There was glitter on her eyelids too, I realized. It made it hard to tear my eyes away. It was the first time I met her eyes while speaking.

“Your daughter reads minds?” I blurted.

“As I said, it’s this game-”

“Darcy,” I said, ignoring Louise and crouching down next to the girl, who was now sitting cross-legged on the floor, holding a Rapunzel doll, right next to her mother’s legs. “Do you sometimes hear what people think in your own head?”

She nodded with those big eyes of a child. Her doll fell to the ground, forgotten. I picked it up on reflex, and totally didn’t almost lose my balance because my legs bent like this weren’t the best idea. But she’d nodded. Was it possible?

“Not always,” she said. “But people here think often about cake, or about big people things. I don’t understand.”

I remembered the feeling of hearing people think about things like sex, taxes, relationships, cheating, love, money, world peace, war, all of those things I hadn’t understood back then, when hearing people think about them would always make me feel like the child at a dinner table full of adults. She had to be telling the truth, right? Why would she lie? Why would she make up this thing that could possibly destroy her life like it had destroyed mine? Maybe it wouldn’t have to be the wrecking ball swung at hers, now. I could warn her in time to duck. So really, this decision wasn’t about myself. It was for Darcy.

“Me too,” I admitted. It was the very first time I had said it out loud in my nineteen years of life. It was to a four year-old who had called me pretty two seconds after first meeting me. Classic Dan Howell.

“What?” Louise, of course, wasn’t in on any of it. “No, it’s a game, and my parenting needs-”

“I’m sure your parenting is fine,” I interrupted her. Standing up took a second too long to come across as smoothly. I fiddled with my fingers as I tried to make coherent sentences of my words, tried to get my point across. “Better than my parents’, in any case. Listen, I know this comes as a shock, but your daughter can read the mind of anyone who is not currently thinking about her, or anything closely related to her. I’ve got that- that curse, what I call it, too. Don’t ask me how to deal, because I am literally the worst person in the world at dealing with just about anything. But if you think there’s good in the world, make sure she knows, because she’ll be dealing with a lot of evil every time you take her outside, and for long, she won’t understand that evil, won’t understand why people are being so mean and so rude and such liars and so fake and why they are having these thoughts, but they will creep up on her if you don’t watch out, they’ll make her bitter. Darcy, did you listen? There are bad people out there. Don’t let their thoughts get to you. Don’t say what you hear to them. They won’t understand. Okay? And most importantly, if your friends have secrets, keep those for them.”

I hadn’t started this monologue with the intention of it turning into a therapy session, but once I had started rambling, I couldn’t stop. I watched the pity appear on Louise’s face. I didn’t want to be pitied, but I would let her as long as I knew this was making an impression on her, and my senseless self-indulgent rambling while staring at a single speck of dust on the ground could change her daughter’s life.

For now, Darcy looked understandably scared. Louise shook her head, very, very slowly. She disappeared behind the counter for a moment. The bakery was awfully quiet. Even the drumming of the rain against the large windows had stopped.

When Louise emerged again, she was carrying a large plate of cake and three forks. She had ditched the apron. I headed for the window, but the tables over there weren’t her destination. Instead, she flopped down on the floor next to her daughter, sighing loudly.

“Dan, I insist you have cake. Sit. It’s a tradition. The floor is clean.”

So I sat down, and we had cake sitting on the floor of the bakery before nine am on a Thursday like it was perfectly normal.

Maybe I had run into more good people here. I could not make a habit of crashing into every person I would talk to. To be fair, I didn’t talk to anyone if I wasn’t forced to, but couldn’t I be forced in another way? The chatter of these two was pleasant. Louise may be awkward, but so was I, and she made up for that by being overwhelmingly kind. My eyes had adjusted to the colours, the purple and the pastel pink and the baby blue. For some reason, I liked this place.

Louise kept asking questions, most of which I couldn’t answer, except for the ones that were about my life, and even then my answers were probably disappointing because I either spoke about Phil, obscure music, or actively avoided the topic of law school because frankly, the cake tasted amazing and I didn’t want the flavour of cardboard in my mouth instead. Darcy kept asking questions, too, but I didn’t know how to reply to those, either. Nevertheless, when we were done with eating cake and the pins and needles in my butt were at extreme level, Louise looked at me like I was a God-send gift. I didn’t deserve this look. Selfish and pathetic as I was, I soaked it up anyways.

“Thank you,” she said. “You have to come back.”

“I will,” I promised. “Thank you so much for the cake. I really appreciate it.”

“Oh,” she exclaimed. “Darcy, run and grab what you did when we decorated together this morning! You can give them to Dan, wouldn’t that be nice? He’s been such a great help to us.”

“Yes!” Darcy jumped to her feet immediately and disappeared before I could even turn my head in my current sugar-induced sleepiness, her eyes lighting up. Thirty seconds later, she reappeared with a box full of little cookies, muffins, and cakes with decoration all over the place, icing in different colours, blobs of frosting and insane amounts of sprinkles.

“They’re the ones I can’t sell,” Louise whispered to me. “I always let Darcy decorate them when I take her with me in the mornings.”

“They’re beautiful,” I told the beaming girl. I wasn’t sure where all this kindness had come from, all these smiles. Phil had to rubbing off on me. It felt foreign, somehow, but the sensation you felt when you were on vacation in a foreign country, watching a sunset or the city lights by night, and everything was more intense and beautiful than it could ever be at home. That was because it wasn’t home. That was because it wasn’t me. Every smile simply made me forget about my past for a moment.

But people on the streets were constantly walking by, and I felt the darkness at the edge of my consciousness, felt it seep into me and out of me in a continuing exchange. It was a part of me, always. I couldn’t change that I was a bad person. Darcy, though, was sweet and but a child.

“Make sure you keep up her belief in a good world,” I whispered urgently to Louise after saying goodbye to Darcy. I cared too much already, but I couldn’t stop myself. I didn’t want Darcy to share my fate. I wished someone could have helped me. She was still just a child, not a bad person. She deserved this. “But don’t lie to her. She’ll know. You can’t be blamed for your thoughts, really, but just give your best to make them child-appropriate, because she’ll know, and she’ll be disillusioned about Santa by now, there’s no way around that. You have to accept that. There are, like, there are enough things you can do well, you have an influence on.”

“Definitely come back, Dan,” was all she said with a thankful smile.

“I will,” I promised. Darcy gave me another huge smile.

I left feeling lighter than when I had entered despite having eaten my bodyweight in cake. Maybe I hadn’t gotten the job, but I had discovered I wasn’t alone with my infliction. I wasn’t the only one.

I knew I was the literal worst person for being happy about this, about another person who had to live with this curse, but that wasn’t new, and would never change. So I might as well have this sad, sick piece of happiness. Right?


	7. SEVEN - SPECIAL

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey friends!  
> so i'm having a really busy two weeks, but i couldn't just not update, so i thought of something that i hope you like? tbh it ended up taking more time to write than a regular chapter but who would've thought.  
> let me know if i should include these regularly in the future! say, every three to four chapters...  
> thank you all so much for giving my writing a little bit of time out of your day.  
> now enjoy!

Ⅰ.ⅰ.  _ (I would never admit that I had any experience with [streaking across the lawn in the middle of January cold]. Miraculously, the voice in my head stopped.) _

Someone just screamed. Is that a new neighbour? Is he in pain? That was a loud scream. Is he dying? What if he is alone and dying and I am the only one who could help? What happened? It is totally creepy to stand with your ear pressed against the one wall which you know goes to your bathroom. Why did they always have to have sex in the shower, too. It seems like such a weird idea. Don’t you slip? I hope he’s not having sex in the shower. I’m just concerned for his safety! That’s the noise of the shower. Probably. Maybe a shower monster attacked him, or maybe he’s being boiled alive right now and can’t turn off the water! 

But he’s not screaming anymore. So he’s probably fine. Right? I hope he’s fine. I don’t want my neighbour to die before I can even meet him. He hasn’t introduced himself. Neither will I, who am I kidding. I didn’t even notice him moving in. Maybe he’s a magician of some kind. I should really get away from this wall. It’s creepy. I doubt that he’d want me to talk to him. Especially if he’s on a secret mission. Or an agent undercover.

The shower is still on. Even if the water was too hot, he’d have used up all of it by now. What if it was too cold and froze the blood in his body and he will die slowly of organ failure? Will he die or will he be preserved if he’s frozen? That’s creepy, too. 

Oh, he turned the shower off. So he’s fine. Good. I like my conscience spotless. Unlike my shirts. How did I get a stain on there already? Anyways. I need to figure out those raccoons. Maybe I can give them freezing powers? Were raccoons supposed to be good or bad again?

 

ⅱ.  _ (...and then crawl into bed, fully aware of how alone I was. For a good ten seconds, I was surrounded by silence.) _

I wonder if Mr. Scream over there is alone or if I now have multiple neighbours. Wouldn’t I have heard voices then? These walls are like paper. I’m tired.

 

Ⅱ.ⅰ.  _ (I noticed the silence at the exact moment that I collided with something.) _

That guy is going very fast. Could he be my new neighbour? He looks upset. I don’t think he’s seen me- I should stop thinking and move. I’m not coordinated enough to avoid him. Oh no. He’s going to fall. We’re both going to fall. Uh-oh. Now I’m holding him. I’m probably invading his personal space so much. I’m practically forcing myself on him. We’ve been standing here for three seconds too many now. Look at the way he’s jumping backwards. He must be about my age, a bit younger, probably. Can’t be younger than eighteen, he wouldn’t be living here if he was. Or maybe if he is some secret agent, it could still be. He’s definitely  cute. And he looks like he’s in pain. I wish there was a way for me to help. I doubt that he’d want anything to do with me. He looks freaked out. Have my glasses slipped again? No, I can see his amazingly brown eyes just fine, and also those very worrying dark shadows underneath them. If those are party-shadows, then he’s either not my neighbour - maybe someone brought home by that neighbour not very audibly - or my neighbour just never parties at home. He’s still just staring.

 

ⅱ.  _ “I am so sorry.” _

Maybe I should reply to that. It wasn’t entirely his fault after all. I even saw him and couldn’t avoid him. I’ll tell him it’s okay and take some of the blame on my clumsy self. He looks like he could be blown away by a gust of wind. Or taken to pieces by being shouted at. That’s a nice idea, too. A cave where the noise is so loud and so unfriendly that people just can’t go into it. And in the end there’s just a grumpy old beaver who wants to desperately have friends. Making conversation would be a better idea now.

 

ⅲ.  _ “No, it’s okay. I should’ve watched where I was going.” _

We’re still staring at each other. What am I supposed to do? A basilisk could show up right now and turn us both to stone statues and it would not change much. Is he okay over there? I’ll try and introduce myself. He’s adorable. I think I’d like to be his friend, at least.

 

ⅳ.  _ “Um. I’m Phil, by the way. I’ve never seen you around before?” _

He’s not saying anything. Maybe he doesn’t speak English well? Maybe he’s just really repulsed by me? But I didn’t say too much, or did I? And we’re standing apart now. It’s probably not about me, he must have a reason for looking so upset. Why do people have to be so solitary, and so mean when in groups?

 

ⅴ.  _ “Dan. I’m Dan. I, uh, live here. Sort of.” _

Oh, that’s so cool! 

 

ⅵ.  _ “Oh! So you’re my neighbour now! It’s so nice to meet you.” _

It’s not like he’s going to want to be friends with me, but never say never, right? Dan is a very nice name. It suits his nice face. Mentally sighing is weird. Even if we never talk again, I’m glad that the old couple of smokers doesn’t live there anymore, he’s definitely a better neighbour than them.

 

ⅶ.  _ “Likewise.” _

He’s either just polite or there’s hope.

 

ⅷ.  _ “Sorry, but-” _

Of course he’d have to be somewhere, storming out of his flat like that. I won’t give up. Maybe just being nice will be enough this time?

 

ⅸ.  _ (Oh. Phil was home. That implied he’d been thinking about me before.) _

I wonder if Dan is any good at Mario Kart. Playing this by myself gets so boring sometimes. I’m not even good at it. Would it be weird if I invited him over for us to play Mario Kart together? Probably. He might not even enjoy it. I don’t want to force him into a situation that’s uncomfortable for him. I would just really like to be his friend. And maybe be close to him a little. People don’t want me to be their friend generally. That’s okay. Okay. Okay. I am almost an adult, I am self-sufficient and I like being alone. Why does it even matter so much what I like and what I don’t like? Why can’t people just like what they like? Dan seems so unhappy, too. I want to hug him. That’s only seventy percent selfish. Right? Don’t cry. Don’t cry. Too late.

 

Ⅲ.ⅰ.  _ (In my mind, there was blissful, blissful silence. I was still angry at everything, but at least I could now be angry in peace.) _

I am not a guy who knows his parties, but that is not a party song. As far as I know he’s alone in that flat. Should I worry? I can’t help it. There’s nothing I can actually do, though. Maybe he just likes his My Chemical Romance music really loudly. I’m not complaining. I’m the guy with the emo fringe! But isn’t he hurting his own ears at that volume?

-

He might have had a bad break-up. If I had any money to spare, I would get him some ice-cream. And some earplugs. His music taste is just as all over the place as mine. I never hear him shouting along, or singing in the shower. He’s probably not the singing type. I should suggest it to him. Screaming along is more therapeutic than just listening.

-

Wow, that must have been a really bad break-up. I want to hug him. I need to get rid of this feeling. It is not socially acceptable to just walk up to people and hug them, especially if they look as upset about their personal space being invaded as Dan did. Or maybe it wasn’t that. I shouldn’t put words in his mouth.

-

We’ve reached the end of his playlist twice by now. I already downloaded this song three days ago. I could sing along, but my singing is awful. The beaver should also sing, not just say things that are really nice in his world-view and offensive to people who don’t speak his language. That’s such a sad, misunderstood beaver. I should get him something nice while he’s still in that cave. It could be music. The emo-music-loving grumpy beaver.

-

Here’s to worrying fruitlessly about an adult that certainly does not want to be worried about! I need to respect his needs and his privacy. I have geese to think about.

 

ⅱ.  _ (I didn’t remember passing out, but I woke up on the bathroom floor with a rotten taste in my mouth and the violent urge to throw up again.) _

No. There’s glass everywhere. There’s glass everywhere on my floor. I need to clean up all this glass before I hurt myself. Why is there so much glass on the floor? Where did it come from? Did I put it there? I can’t remember putting it there. Can I trust my memories to be accurate? I don’t know if I can trust myself. Who else could have put it there? Was there someone in my flat? But no-one has a spare key to it. And who would do this? It’s from the lightbulbs, it’s from all the lightbulbs. I have no lights. Did they steal anything? No, my laptop is still here. It’s the only objectively valuable thing I have. I need light. What happened to my laptop? Why are there so many things popping up all of a sudden? There must be a virus on it. How did I get a virus on my laptop? I am so careful with it. I bought that really expensive antivirus program, didn’t I? It was fine when I last touched it. But who would have had access to my flat and my laptop? Do I have to be scared? I don’t want to be scared in my home. Who did this? Who did I offend so much? What have I done wrong? I might have to vomit. My bank account is basically empty.

**I can’t afford buying food if I buy lamps.**

Should I go to the police with this? But I have no clue who it was. Maybe I wronged someone. I might have deserved this. Or it was a freak accident. An angry rainbow raccoon shooting his ice rays at my lamps and going mad on the keyboard of my laptop. Have I angered a demon? I hate thinking about demons. I might just not leave my bed for the next few days after I vacuumed the floor. That’s excusable, right? I can excuse that with ‘someone or something has broken every single lightbulb in my flat.’ My stomach is in a thousand knots. I can’t be weak now. I could go home. Where did I last put my hoover? Ah, the suitcase. Going home sounds good in theory. But I can’t.

**What will I tell my parents? I can’t ask them for help. They’re poor enough as it is.**

I don’t want them to worry about me. I don’t want them to think I have made enemies in London when I barely talk to anyone. I don’t know who could hate me this much and why they would. It’s been years and I still haven’t figured out how in this society you get attacked for being too nice. Maybe that’s just what they tell me. Maybe that’s just what I hear. All I think I know could just be distorted reality.

**It’s school all over again.**

Hoovering all of this is going to take ages. My laptop still won’t react. Those colours are nice but so is my background and I would like to see it. And maybe access my files. At least my bedroom floor is done now. This carpet is not helping. I wasn’t even aware I had so many lightbulbs in my lounge. How much glass can you possibly get from objects so small? None of my glasses are broken. My laptop seems to be, though. I can’t access the Control Panel. I have no idea how else to get rid of this virus. All my files will be lost.

**Kingdom of Oxin is online.**

One more floor cleaned. Who did this? I thought I’d settled here fine. I thought I could be okay. Can’t I just be okay? I’ll stop asking for friends, or for someone to actually enjoy my company and not get weirded out. Apparently I can make people hate me without having a conversation longer than five minutes with them. I should include that on my next CV, or on my next application for a new flat.

**I’ll never be welcome anywhere.**

Bad things like this can’t just happen to good people for no reason. That’s not fair. There must be a reason, something I am not seeing. Even demons don’t just harm random humans. And rainbow raccoons would have left traces, right? Maybe I’ve attracted the wrath of a malevolent witch. I must have done something to deserve this. The kitchen floor is safe now, I think. Only three more rooms. I refuse to believe someone or something would make an effort like this for no reason.

**It’s my fault.**

Right? It has to be. I need to become a better person. I don’t know how anymore. I’m just inherently flawed. There’s something broken about me. Not only my light bulbs. This is tiring. I just want to sleep for five years.

 

ⅲ.  _ (I wasn’t sure if I was even still alive or if this was just my own personal hell.) _

I can’t sleep. It’s light outside again and I still can’t sleep. I am so emotionally exhausted. I need to sleep. There are too many thoughts in my head and too many feelings in my chest and it’s all keeping me awake and I hate it. I hate it I hate it I hate it. Who did this to me? I can’t think of anything creative. All I can think of are demons, demons, demons. Daylight won’t even wash them away. I don’t really dare to close my eyes. I don’t want to be alone right now. I wonder if Dan saw anything, or heard anything. Maybe I could go knock on his door. I really don’t want the police here. My laptop is still unresponsive, and it just won’t shut itself down. I regret making a point of buying one with long battery life. These colours are slowly becoming menacing. Am I hungry? Would eating something be a good idea?

 

ⅳ.  _ (A sharp pang of pain surging through my entire body made me scream.) _

Holy- Was that just Dan screaming? Is he getting attacked? This time my worrying is legit. This isn’t just emo music or shouting in the shower, this is a bloodcurdling scream and I am allowed to worry. I am allowed to jump up and run to his door and bang on it. Why isn’t he opening it? Maybe he’s seriously hurt. Can I break this door open? My fists already hurt just from intense knocking. I would probably break bones earlier than I could make this door budge or even just put a dent in it. Bang. Ouch. Bang. Ouch. At least this is making me forget about my own flat. Ouch. The door is gone. Where did- Oh, Dan. He looks like hell. Those shadows look drawn on. Is that make-up? Is he sick? Is he going to drop dead at my feet?

 

ⅴ.  _ “What do you want? Leave me alone! I’m fine! I don’t need your help!” _

I don’t know what I want, but I certainly don’t want to leave him alone, no matter what he says. This is selfish, but I also don’t want to be alone. I didn’t know that I can move my foot this fast. He’s crying. Why is he crying? I want to hug him. And protect him. I am the worst person to protect him, probably. I can’t even protect my light bulbs. Dan is like an easily extinguishable flame. What if people had flames on their head? Not the kind that would burn bedsheets and hair, but the kind that showed how someone was feeling. I feel like Dan’s would be small, but blue, and so bright that people can’t look at it. He’s holding on to the door. He’s going to fall if he lets go of it. I want to hold him. Maybe I should first let him know that I worry about him. That I didn’t just randomly show up and now refuse to let him close the door. For all he knows, I might be some serial killer. I might be about to drag him to my flat. My face probably doesn’t look quite good either.

 

ⅵ.  _ “You don’t look fine. I heard you screaming. I’m sorry for invading your privacy, I really am, but I’ve been worrying about you for a while, and I thought I might have to call an ambulance.” _

Did that sound creepy? I wish I could let him know I am being honest. And not a sexual predator, or a serial killer. He’s not saying anything. He’s also not moving. He looks like he’s asleep standing up. He still looks like he might drop dead still. I might have to call that ambulance after all. I don’t do phone calls well. He needs to sit down. We need to move out of the hallway, it’s too early on a Saturday to make noise in here. Has he been crying all night? Why? I am the worst person at comforting. Is it still that bad break-up? If it even ever was one. I am a stalker. I really have spent too much thought on his private life. Will he let me into his flat?

 

ⅶ.  _ “Um. Can I… Can I come in?” _

Opening the door further is a yes, right? I will take it as a yes. I wish Dan would just say something. I hate feeling like I am invading his privacy. I would also hate indirectly killing him. And he doesn’t look good at all. He’s shivering violently and he doesn’t even seem to notice. What happened to him? Who did this to him? Did someone break into his flat, too?

 

ⅷ.  _ “You’re shivering. Go put on some clothes.” _

He still hasn’t said anything, but he’s doing what I told him to, and he doesn’t look like he’s scared of me. He just seems so empty. Like his flame is really, really small right now. Like it’s threatening to go out. What his flat looks like is barely even interesting to me. It seems nice, a little too minimalist for my taste. He has video games. Maybe it wouldn’t be so weird to invite him to play with me. When he’s not dying of illness anymore. Because right now he looks really, really bad. Even with two blankets around him and a sweatshirt on, he’s still shivering. I know he’s not okay, but that’s what you ask, right?

 

ⅸ.  _ “Are you okay?” _

He’s definitely not okay. That sob wasn’t human anymore. I need to help him. I can’t just leave him to this, leave him alone. There’s definitely no-one else in this flat. He’ll break any moment and there’ll be no-one to collect the pieces if I leave.

 

ⅹ.  _ “Do you want to talk?” _

Talking is good. I need to get him to talk. I need to know more. I definitely can’t help him otherwise. I feel so useless. Like a panda, or a sloth, just less cute. He won’t talk. But offering is still good? I think? I don’t know how much caring for strangers is socially acceptable?

 

ⅺ.  _ “Why are you so nice to me? You can’t- I’m not- It’s not- I hate the way you just won’t hate me!” _

This is not what I expected. It hurts to listen to. It hurts me to see him hurt so much. The sound of his voice is painful.

 

ⅻ.  _ “No-one is this nice. It’s not possible, it doesn’t exist, you can’t be human, you’re supposed to, to be annoyed with me. Just fucking- It was me! I broke your lamps! Your life is so bright and I- just black, all is blackblackblack, and you make me look at the light and then I’m so lost, I’m so lost, and you’re not supposed to worry about me, you’re supposed to leave me alone and continue being fucking happy and bright and nice- Why won’t you leave me alone? I downloaded the virus on your laptop, it was me, just hate me already! I had no reason, you didn’t do anything, it wasn’t your fault okay? It was not your fault. The entire world is a fucking bad place and everyone has a skeleton hidden in their cupboards except for you- you’re just, you’re unnerving, and you shouldn’t be here! I don’t deserve your help, I deserve this pain and nothing else. I’m a bad person, okay! I’m-” _

I don’t understand. I don’t understand half of what he’s saying. I feel like I’m missing something vital here, something important. I wish he could be open with me, I wish he could tell me the truth. He needs to stop talking right now. I can’t let him push himself any deeper into this spiral, not on my watch. What? Why does he think I’m so happy? Oh. So he did it? I don’t want to believe him, but I have to. It’s not my fault? In some way, it still is. What have I done to him? How was I the one to put him in so much pain he felt the need to lash out so dramatically? How did he come to resent the world so much? He doesn’t deserve this, no-one deserves pain. Pain is an affliction of the world that we search to justify by hating ourselves and convincing ourselves that it is there for a reason. Sometimes it just isn’t. I hate that being nice isn’t the norm, I hate that pain is, I hate this blurry hopelessness in his eyes. He really needs to stop. I refuse to believe that he’s a bad person, and I won’t let him-

 

ⅻⅰ.  _ (All of a sudden, a warm hand was on my mouth, preventing me from croaking out more.) _

There. That’s better. He’s hurting himself just by talking. His throat is a human cheese grater. He must be hurting his soul a thousand times as much as his body with those knives of words. He’s certainly hurting himself more than he hurt me, or my apartment. I don’t understand why he did it, I really don’t, but I’m sure he has a valid reason. I’m not automatically entitled to understanding him. We have never even had a proper conversation. I refuse to believe there’s true bad behind those warm eyes. I believe who cries these broken tears cannot be a bad person. I’m naive, and I’m well aware, but I refuse to believe anything else.

 

ⅹⅳ.  _ “I’m so sorry. I’ll replace everything when I get my next paycheck, I promise, I’ll fix your laptop, I’ll do anything. I know you hate me. Just say it.” _

How can a person so desperate to be forgiven be inherently bad? Sure, what he did wasn’t the epitome of goodness. But how could I hate a boy as soft, as fragile-looking as this one? This boy that I am still practically gagging with my hand. Oh no. He’s radiating heat, and not in any good way. I wouldn’t care much if he was, but as it is, I do care, and quite a bit. Quite a bit too much. His face is so hot it cannot be healthy anymore. There’s a curl on his forehead. I’m pretty sure he has a fever. My palm is unnaturally warm. I need to calm him down, and also get off my chest what I am thinking, all these feelings that aren’t even clear to myself.

 

ⅹⅴ.  _ “I don’t hate you. Everyone makes mistakes. And I don’t see how saying I’m too nice is an insult? I don’t have to understand all of you to know that you’re not an inherently bad person. You made a bad decision, yes. Maybe you made a few bad decisions. But the world isn’t all black and white. Now stop working yourself up about it. Okay? I’ll manage. I don’t need to understand you to respect you as a human being.” _

My words have no impact on his glassy eyes, on the tightness of his lips, on the visible flames dancing across his body. There’s more yet eating him apart. Could a hug help him? Could it hurt him? Is it worth the risk? Do I just- Yes. Phil, heaven’s sake, sometimes you need to just do things. I must’ve already hurt him badly somehow, there doesn’t seem to be a right way to handle Dan. I shouldn’t take advantage of him in a pliant state like this. But he doesn’t pull away, and now it feels like he’s on the verge of falling apart against me. Who am I to let him? Who am I to let the pieces of him get away, when he’s not moving, not saying anything, and appears to be trusting me at least for now? I like this. I’m so selfish to relax. It feels soft, and warm, and right. Sweet. Innocent. Like bathing in cotton candy, just a little less sticky. Hopefully it’s not a sticky situation. Hopefully it feels as natural to Dan as it feels to me. I haven’t held anyone in a long while. What if I’m not doing this right? Those are tears on my shirt. I can feel his sadness seeping into my clothing, pouring onto my body. What have I done now to deserve this trust? Is this really even about me? Who am I to him right now? He’s so fragile, and warm. Unhealthily hot even, and shivering. His shirt is damp at the back. I want to help him. I don’t want him to push himself to the point where he breaks. I can’t believe I just thought that. Oh no. I can’t care too much. Why is it that being a decent human being has become a crime?

 

ⅹⅵ.  _ “You have a fever. Dan, I know you think you have to deal with everything on your own but that’s not true.” _

He needs to sleep. He needs to let go of whatever is making him sob. I need to let go of him first, though, and physically. For some reason people disapprove of long-lasting hugs nowadays. I don’t see how loneliness could be cool. I hate loneliness. He looks so hungry. Not solely for food, but certainly also for food. He looks hungry for his problems to be solved, for something more. I know that hunger. But small steps are probably the best idea. Remember, Phil; small steps.

 

ⅹⅶ.  _ “Now, you go to bed. I’ll make you some soup. We can talk when you’re not ill anymore. But I’m not going to hate you then, either. I promise. I’m not just doing this because I pity you. Okay?” _

Did I go too far?

 

ⅹⅷ.  _ “Okay. Thank you.” _

His voice is so quiet I can barely hear his words, but they’re simple, clear, and touching, and maybe I actually did the right thing for once. Maybe I did something good in a world that I didn’t create myself, one that I was thrown into by force. There’s so much more we need to talk about and so much more I want to know about him. I have this need to get to know him that goes against anything I should be feeling right now.

He doesn’t look all that peaceful, even asleep. I wish I could help. I wish being nice could be enough for once.


	8. Eight

The box under my arm was heavy as I lifted my keys to unlock the front door. They were my keys. These ones didn’t burn into my hand like the ones from the door on the other side of the corridor had, these were light as feathers and today, the door opened easily like it only did when Phil was home, and it hadn’t been properly locked. I threw it open a little too harshly with my shoulder. This, of course, was because I really couldn’t stand carrying the box in my arms anymore, not because Phil was home and also thinking about me. I wasn’t excited, I was merely looking forward to spending a comfortable evening watching Game of Thrones.

I spoke before I had set one foot into the door, as it was still opening. “Phil! I brought home food again! And I served three customers. Louise has been experimenting with ba-”

The heavy wooden door banged against the wall. Me throwing it open on numerous occasions had indented the wallpaper considerably by now. It wasn’t my fault that most of the times I came home now, I was balancing a box of discarded baked goods when opening the door. It was Louise who was doing experiment after experiment, none of them going quite right. Those were her words. Me and Phil were of a different opinion. Thinking of Phil, he was very quiet today. He had to have heard me enter. I hadn’t exactly snuck into the flat. I furrowed my eyebrows and kicked off my shoes uncaringly, prepared to march into the living room and find him hunched over his laptop like every time he had a day off, and then pretend to lecture him for a while before settling down in a position that was even worse. I didn’t quite get that far. Phil stood halfway between the door and the sofa with an apologetic smile on his face and panic in his eyes.

The sofa was occupied nevertheless. I swallowed hard. It took me a lot of effort not to drop the box of misshapen banana bread. By some miracle, I managed.

“Uh, Dan? Your parents are here,” Phil said slowly.

“I can- I can see that. Hi. Mum. Dad. Nice to see you,” I said. Phil took the box from my hands, brushing his own over them so softly that it might have been an accident. It had probably been an accident. It calmed me down a little bit, intentional or not.

“Hello, Daniel,” my father said. He was barely even sitting on the couch, scared probably of all its wrinkles and creases. Instead, he was perched on the edge with his back straighter than humanly possible. Very unlike me in any sense, my father. I was glad sometimes that I didn’t even have to worry about being good at genetics and having to try and understand the transferring process of characteristics from parents to their children, simply because of how dramatically bad I was at biology.

“You haven’t called,” my mother added through gritted teeth. I swallowed again, dry this time.

“Nope,” I said. There was a guy in the corner of the living room, pressed against the wall very relatably. His eyes were wide open like Bambi’s and very blue but also very unlike Phil’s, and I shouldn’t be thinking about what he looked like before I even knew who he was and what he was doing in mine and Phil’s apartment. And I shouldn’t be thinking about that before I had figured out what my parents were doing here, and what I was going to say to them now that I was very badly self-sufficient. I was a master of bad ideas, and a master of having no control over my own brain. In fact, this was such a big skill of mine that really, it belonged on my résumé. Maybe it would finally get me that much-needed job.

“We weren’t aware that you had a job at a bakery?”

“Yeah, no, I don’t,” I replied. I was honestly surprised my face didn’t feel like one could’ve made a fried egg on it yet. It felt relatively normal. This, of course, had to happen in a moment when it was perfectly not normal to stay cool, and definitely unacceptable to still be standing frozen in the entrance to the living room. Should I hug my parents? No, no, definitely not. A shudder going through my entire body at the mere thought answered this question for me.

Both parent persons in question stared at me blankly. I almost smirked, but I wasn’t quite at that level of coolness. And at the necessary and presumably always faked emotional distance to the world.

“Louise is a friend,” I explained. “I-”

Yes, what did I do? I spent my days at the bakery when I couldn’t stand classes and Louise kept on texting me to not be such a shut-in; I played with Darcy and occasionally cried in front of an open law book and a cup of hot chocolate. And sometimes, when Louise was extra busy and so stressed out that her being in the back and the front virtually at the same time would’ve inevitably led to her screaming at a customer, I served someone. Always wearing all black had its perks.

“I help her sometimes,” I said after a break that had been much too long, made possible only by the heavy silence that no-one dared to speak up in.

“Interesting,” my father said in a voice that made clear he didn’t think it was interesting at all.

“And we weren’t aware you had moved?” My mother’s eyebrows threatened to disappear under her hairline. I couldn’t tear my eyes away from them. It was distracting. The fact that her statement had really been a question slipped my attention, unfortunately. I kept staring at her intelligently. The silence in my mind was unnerving, and the silence in the room even more so.

“Um,” Phil said, clearing his throat, very obviously uncomfortable. I startled, and looked at him as apologetically as I could. I hoped my eyes were successful in communicating how sorry I was. Realistically though, my eyes weren’t expressive enough. “Um. I, this was my flat, and now it’s ours? Um, there was a, a mix-up with the landlord, and then, ah, Troye here- you know how it goes.”

He smiled widely after that, a little too widely, and it was very evident that my parents did absolutely not ‘know how it goes’. Ah, well. Neither did I. A similarity between us!

So blue-Bambi-eyes was the one who had moved into my old flat and played the guitar all the time.

“Exactly,” I said. My smile was a grimace. Troye in the corner looked scared. I felt awfully sorry for him and his luckily-not-so-pure, but still soft and poetic self that had to endure all this harshness.

“Exactly,” my mother repeated skeptically. “Daniel. You might not live under our roof anymore, but we are still your parents and you still have a responsibility to-”

“No,” I said, effectively interrupting her. I knew what she was going to say. I was tired. I had fled my nine am class today, seconds before I could hurt my hand punching a guy. He was a fridge of a student, all muscle and apparently also a little bit of brain as he was, after all, in university, but not the kind of brain that meant life intelligence, and not enough brain to respect women. Dubious consent was not consent. It shouldn’t be a concept so hard to grasp. It made me gag how socially acceptable rape as a sexual fantasy was. And yes, purposely getting a girl drunk so that she couldn’t say no did count as rape in my books. I was pissed off, partly because his existence was infuriating, partly because I knew I was too weak to fight all the injustice and all the fucking assholes in the world. I was tired of people, of hypocrisy, tired of my parents pretending they were good parents, tired of society pretending parents were always good and right and just in general. Where had I left off? Right, interrupting my mother. I should get on with that, otherwise the gap would let her interrupt me right back. “I don’t think I have a responsibility to let you know what I am doing.”

“Daniel,” my father said threateningly, and wow, they sure did know what they had named their son. “Daniel James Howell.”

“Father,” I replied. I wanted to sound cold and at least as condescendent as he did, but I ended up sounding like Draco Malfoy in the first movie. Fuck. I was going to show them. I was going to show them that I wasn’t just a screw-up. That I was doing better on my own. Which I wasn’t. Still, I was going to show them. “Mother. Can I offer you a cup of tea?”

“No,” my mother said. “We really did let you go, we gave you all the time, we said nothing when you didn’t call your grandmother for her birthday, and we trusted in you to go to university and not waste your entire life playing video games. We didn’t even say anything when you didn’t call for your father’s birthday last week! We had some business close by and thought we could try and visit you, and then we knock on _ your _ door and this young man opens! Tell us, what are we supposed to think!”

“I’m amazed to hear how capable of using ‘we’ as a pronoun you suddenly are, now that you have decided I can at least, if still a horrible deception of a son, be the common enemy that reunites you,” I spat. Phil flinched next to me, so violently that I felt it without even looking. Fuck. Fuck. All of this was a fucking mess. Tears were burning behind my eyes. I couldn’t let them out, I needed to lock them away, I needed to bury them in a pile of words sharp like knives and hide them behind a wall more solid than any border anywhere in the world.

“Tell me, did you have some nice tea parties without me? Did you invite all your side chicks and side dicks, and did you maybe even have an orgy or something? Because, god, I haven’t seen you agreeing in like, ever. Honestly. It’s beautiful. Keep it up. There’s no need to worry about me!”

Silence. Complete and utter and total silence. My eyes failed. No, that wasn’t true; they were working just fine. But there was something failing in my brain, something snapping, and I was suddenly back in this exact spot, but a few weeks ago, alone, and I wanted to put out all the lights in the room and tear all the people apart so that they knew what it felt like to be me. I wanted them to share my anguish when I had to share theirs. It seemed only fair to me. There were no tears behind my eyes anymore, but at the back of my throat, there was a red-hot dragon, spitting fire into my mouth that had to get out, or else I would burn, or else I would explode.

“Fucking hell, don’t talk to me like you ever cared, like I wasn’t a nuisance from the moment   I was born, like you don’t secretly hate each other! Don’t talk to me like you aren’t glad I am gone from your lives, and like you didn’t only look for me because suddenly there was no reason for your life anymore.”

My father got up behind the flowing curtain of fire in all shades of orange and red that had me wondering why I wasn’t burning yet, why the flames hadn’t caught on to anything other in the room. He was a gangly man, frame tall and disproportionate like mine, and I was too old for him to still be towering over me,  but somehow even as we were the same height, he was intimidating. He looked me right into the eyes, and they were so dark, brown like mine, that they broke through the fire. I saw hurt gleaming behind them, hurt because he had been betrayed, and I interrupted my monologue to scoff at this, because yes, he knew now what I felt.

“Why the fuck did you think it was a good idea to put me into this world, this child you knew you couldn’t properly care for?”

I had been asking my question since I could ask myself question; it might have been the very first one of my own that popped up in my mind.

My father placed his hand on my shoulder. I felt his touch burn through my shirt, my skin and my flesh, right to the core of my body, not like untamed fire, but like ice-cold acid dripping uncontrollably.

“You can’t hurt me anymore,” I pressed out while I was hurting so much that I feared I might lose consciousness any moment. “You can’t fucking hurt me anymore! Don’t fucking touch me! Get your filthy hands off me! Get them off!”

A whisper turned into a scream within seconds, and I wasn’t sure if the words I was thinking were the same as I was saying. I didn’t trust my body to follow my orders. I was frozen, my arms hanging to my side uselessly, and oh, if this wasn’t ironic, if my entire existence wasn’t just one big fucking joke.

“Enough,” someone said, someone whose voice was like honey on a sore throat, soothing like hot chocolate for a whimpering soul.

“This is my flat, and you’re going to leave now. If you don’t let go of my friend right this moment, I will not hesitate to call the police. Do you understand?”

“Fuck off, you fag, this is my son,” my father growled. “You might let him fuck you, but I am not tolerating this behavi-”

His hand was ripped off my shoulder, and he broke off in the middle of his speech. My mother squealed. I was too slow to process what was happening until it was almost over and the last thing I saw was my mother’s face contorted into a horrible grimace before Phil, soft, gentle Phil, slammed the door shut behind them and locked it twice.

I couldn’t breathe.

The curtain of fire slowly, slowly lifted, but my head stayed in this poisonous dark cloud that made me doubt if I was even myself, if there was anything I had control over when I couldn’t couldn’t know if what I saw was real, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t know if I was saying what I thought I was.

He hurried over to me, then, his eyes like an ocean after a month of storms, and floods, enraged and still soothing.

“Dan,” he said. “Hey, hey, Dan, don’t black out on me.”

He had four eyes; eight- reality was slipping away.

“Is it okay for me to hug you?”

I wanted to nod, and my head started spinning faster, so I was probably nodding, and god, what was up with me being so dramatic lately? The bottle inside my body had broken, and left me with feelings that had nowhere to go and pieces of shattered glass stuck in every inch of my insides. The fire was me now, I was the fire, and I burned white-hot, the blue part of the flame that looked cold but brought the worst burns. Shit. Fuck. Couldn’t I just become as emotional as a stone again? I didn’t want all this suffering anymore. I was too weak to walk this road.

Phil’s arms around me where water against my fire, water that didn’t evaporate, arms that didn’t flinch away.

“Okay?” He whispered.

“Yes,” I croaked out. I closed my eyes.

I’d rather have no reality than a distorted one.

The world stopped spinning around me after the longest while; I could only hope it was still spinning around the sun, spinning on its course in space, and hadn’t stopped. I coughed into Phil’s shoulder. Not this again. I couldn’t possibly get sick every time something upset me. What was wrong with me? Why did I keep on doing this to myself?

I freed myself out of Phil’s grasp, even though it was like voluntarily stepping out of an airplane without a parachute when the air was black and poisonous.

Our poor neighbour was still in the corner with his glance pointedly directed at the ceiling.

“Sorry,” I said to him.

Phil handed me a glass of water.

“Thanks,” I mumbled. “Uh, hey, I’m Dan, you’re Troye, right?”

“Um,” he said, looking at me now but not taking a step forwards. He looked legitimately scared and I absolutely could not blame him. Nevertheless, he offered me a tentative smile. “Ah, yeah, yes, that’s me.”

I couldn’t bring myself to smile back. I didn’t want my face to form a grimace like my mother’s.

“I’m so sorry you had to see that,” I said as earnestly as I could. And while I was earnest, I knew I’d never sound that way. My tongue was permanently tainted by badly told lies that made every word rolling off it sound fake, so fucking fake, even when I meant them.

“Ah, it’s all good, dude, don’t worry,” he said. “It seems like you have enough to deal with. I promised my mum I’d skype her, though, so I guess I’ll see you around? Good luck with your folks. Don’t worry, I’ll find the way out.”

“Thanks,” I said.

“Thank you,” Phil added. He sounded earnest, of course. His tongue wasn’t tainted. I felt the urge to kiss him, but that was all wrong in this situation and it would always be all wrong, because I would inevitably taint him. Darkness spread faster than light, and always would. I turned away from him.

The door shut again, softly, barely audibly.

“Dan,” Phil said. “Are you- No. Will you be okay?”

I shrugged. There was nothing he could do, was there? It wasn’t like he’d always

“I’ll always be okay, and I’ll always not be okay.”

“Would you like another hug?”

“Yes,” I said as I told myself to say no, and when Phil was there, I didn’t succeed in hating myself for it. He broke the spiral effortlessly just like he broke the wall between us that had never been more than paper-thin.

“I suggest a picnic,” he said somewhere not far from my ear. His breath touched my skin, somehow cold against it.

I started crying, because I was the most self-sufficient of people who couldn’t stand their parents, and totally not lost every step along the way, even when going in circles. I started crying, and was too weak now to stop the tears from finally flowing. I started crying, and Phil just simply held me tighter.

I didn’t stop crying for a long time in his arms.

It was the ugly kind of crying, snot and tears and broken sobs and hard breathing whenever my body would let me, whenever my lungs begging for air couldn’t take it anymore. And Phil held me through it.

My parents couldn’t stand crying. When I was three, they had started locking me in my room, and when at five, I realized I could get out from there by picking the old lock, they began locking me out of the house, until I had no tears left. I had learnt quickly not to cry in front of them. No one had ever held me when I was crying. No one had ever whispered to me that everything would be fine. I knew it was a lie, and I still wanted to hear it.

“Picnic?” Phil asked carefully when my sobs finally subsided. My throat hurt. “Or do you want me to leave you alone?”

“Please don’t leave me alone,” I heard myself saying. I wanted to slap myself, but my arms were limp at my sides. I couldn’t move them. Why could I never move them when I needed them most? Why did I never succeed in defending myself? I couldn’t even defend myself from other people’s free-floating thoughts, couldn’t defend myself from their grasping hands and pervert eyes. I couldn’t defend myself from myself. So I stood there, and let the words hang in the room, let Phil deal with them. Ready for the blow.

“I won’t,” he said quietly. “C’mon. Do you want to put on some comfortable clothes?”

I nodded.

“And then come to the kitchen with me, we’ll make some hot chocolate?”

I nodded again.

“Let’s go,” he coaxed, reaching out for my arm slowly. “Is this fine?”

I was well aware that he was treating me like a five-year-old. It scared me slightly that I didn’t mind, that I let him take my wrist and lead me to my clothes, to the kitchen. It scared me slightly how low I had sunken in my pride. But Phil was there, and I didn’t feel judged. He was too nice, too good, and wouldn’t stay; it was slowly becoming clear to me that after knowing this, I couldn’t go back. I was different now. The world was different.

When Phil left me alone inevitably, breaking this promise that had never been made to last forever, I saw no reason for me to stay in this world, this prison of a body and mind.

“Dan.” Phil’s voice pulled me out of my trance. He stood at a small distance, eyes fixed on me intently. Oh. He wasn’t going to touch me. He wasn’t even going to brush my hand with his without asking for my consent. He was too fucking sweet and considerate for this world.

“You coming?”

“Yeah,” I rushed. “Yeah, yeah. Sure. Hey, Phil.”

“Hm?” He turned in the doorway, softly smiling. I trusted him. Fuck. I couldn’t just go around trusting people. Where would that get me? Nowhere good, surely. I couldn’t just trust Phil Lester because he’d been perfect for weeks on end, obnoxiously, insufferably perfect. There was always a catch. There had to be a catch. But yet again; if that catch turned out to be big, and fatal, there was nothing holding me here, and a box of sleeping pills buried deep under my things. After Phil, there would be nothing. Literal nothing. I was certainly one pathetic fuck. Luckily, this wasn’t a recent realisation.

“Youdon’thavetoaskeverytimeyoutouchmeit’sfine,” I said in one breath. “Like, you’re not gonna give me a panic attack or something. ‘M not that fragile.”

“Okay,” he said simply, with another smile. “Thank you for telling me. I don’t mind asking, though. Okay?”

I could literally only nod, dumbfounded. Where the fuck were his flaws? Real life Mary Sues were a paradox. I refused. My refusal was useless; I was wax melting near a source of heat, only everything was upside down and Phil was melting me, cold as he was all the time, with his warm heart and soul.

We sat on the carpet with pillows around us, drank hot chocolates, ate the banana bread I had long forgotten and watched some anime that Phil had chosen on my insistence that I didn’t not care. Which I didn’t, because I wasn’t even watching. Well, I was staring at the screen, but I literally couldn’t tell what we were watching. It wasn’t even six pm and I was tired. Troye started thinking about Australia and his mum, obviously on the phone; he wasn’t thinking about us anymore. It was amazing how fast people moved on.

The world continued turning. Maybe mine would get off this rocky road at one point, too, and just roll. I doubted it.

I was tired. It was six pm, my eyes were falling shut. The empty, now cold mug was in safe distance on the coffee table.

I leaned into Phil’s side.

“Okay?” I asked.

“Of course,” he said after five seconds. Five agonizing seconds. I was only a blink of an eye from moving away hurriedly. There was a problem with Phil being so damn perfect: Every time something went wrong between us, it was undebatably my fault. I took a deep breath.

“Thanks,” I finally said into an over-the-top anime melody. Phil turned down the volume immediately. Suddenly, the room was a lot quieter than it had been. Troye was quiet, too. He was probably telling his mum about his weird and borderline serial killer neighbour. “I, uh, just, uh, wanted to say thanks for not asking questions?”

“I’m not entitled to know everything about your life,” Phil replied. “Friends aren’t the FBI. Although that probably doesn’t care about us as British people. But I care about you. Still. Let’s just stay with that first sentence that I can only put into words so directly because I read it on the Internet. I’m not entitled to know everything about your life. You decide how much you share.”

Too fucking perfect. Phil Lester was too fucking perfect.

He laughed softly, then immediately cut himself off, as if he felt guilty for laughing at me. Why was he even laughing at me?

“No-one is perfect.”

Had I said that aloud? I had said that aloud. Could I just go die now, before I fulfilled every single cliché there was? I was undeserving of everything I had right now. Or maybe going to sleep would be sufficient. Going to sleep never lasted, just like this situation wouldn’t. The colours would fade, inevitably. The poisonous cloud was still looming right around the corner. But there was also Phil, who turned the volume up again when he sensed that I wouldn’t answer, and chuckled along quietly to jokes I didn’t understand because I wasn’t reading the English subtitles. My eyes were closed.

Phil was a sun. In his light, I was able to drift off to sleep.


	9. Nine

_ I need to buy booze. Mick still hasn’t paid me back for that bottle of vodka last week, the fucker. That girl is ugly but her boobs are nice. Is Caroline going to let me fuck her? Her sister is prettier, but so fucking stuck up. _

I loved university. I got to listen to England’s greatest minds while spending my time in lecture halls that smelled of flowers and freshly baked bread. Sunlight flooded the room through windows covering most of the walls. And the chairs were so comfortable! I preferred them to a sofa at any time of the day, but especially at nine am on a Wednesday.

_ What if I stabbed myself with this pencil right now? Would I have to sit the exam next week? Being stuck in a psych ward is probably better than being stuck in an exam hall. I would rather just die. If Max dumps me like Violet said he would, I’ll kill myself. Does Mum still keep all of her sleeping pills in the medicine cabinet? _

No. I couldn’t keep lying to myself this way. I hated university. No-one here was a great mind; the only food the lecture halls smelled like was eggs, rotten eggs, and the remaining thin air was filled with despair, sweat and copious amounts of deodorant. There was a single, small window just above the board that looked misplaced, and the sky behind it was a sullied grey.

_ I need to make it clear to Mary, the bitch, that she better don’t come to Gabe’s party on Friday. She can’t fuck with him like that. Except if she brings her brother’s weed, then we might still give her a chance. _

It was nine am on a Wednesday, that much had been true. Class was supposed to start now, but barely a quarter of the seats were occupied. I sat in the very last row, on the very left. Every morning, for every class I went to, I arrived early just to get this seat. There was a gap next to me, and then an emergency exit. No-one sat here voluntarily. It was the middle that was crowded, where girls hugged each other while each was thinking about how much she hated the other girl, where boys greeted each other in loud voices and pretended to be so cool while thinking about their Mums and Dads and the girl next to them that they had fantasised about last night. In that order.

_ And then Draco kissed him, and the fire of the passionate kiss consumed both of them. Harry kept thinking, this is so wrong, this is so wrong, but when Draco’s huge dick was in his ass five minutes later, he didn’t get to do much thinking at all anymore. Drarry is so cute. Gay couples are so cute. I wish I was a boy so that I could have a relationship like that. _

There were the rejects, of course. The nerds towards the front, the professor-favourites, and the drug addicts towards the back. The fan fiction writers, the alcoholics. The ones with depression, anxiety and eating disorders; basket cases. I belonged with them, and I knew that. Placing myself above them, me, a case for the locked psych ward and an angsty little middle class boy, would have been foolish and hopelessly conceited. But everyone in this hall was the same in a way. The girl fetishizing gay relationships was no better than the jock thinking about a threesome with a girl and her sister. The smart girl with the bright future was no better than the girl who would inevitably drop out before the end of the first semester. All of their minds were filled with vile and repulsing thoughts, and so was my own.

_ I could kill her. Or him. I could kill someone. My father’s gun. My knife. I could kill all of them. The bomb from the Internet. I could. Someday, I will. Not here. They aren’t worthy to be killed by me. I need to learn first. Remember, remember, evade the law, evade the law. My father’s gun. My knife. I need to keep up the act. I need to get A’s. A clean record. White skin. Evade the law. My bomb. I will build a bigger one, I will take them by surprise, no-one will know it is me. I’ll burn it to the ground. _

Some thought processes were a little more worry-inducing than others. The room was half-empty still as the professor marched in. He closed the door behind him with a bang, a shout of ‘I’m here, and for an hour now, I’m the boss’ that nobody listened to. His skin was yellow, more so in the light that gave the healthiest face a sickly hue, and the noisy, weak air conditioning spread an overwhelming smell of cigarettes all the way to the back of the room. I might have been imagining that, but it was pungent, fogging up my nostrils. Stale cigarettes, rotten eggs, boys that had never heard of this thing called shower before. Maybe it was the air that was pulling apart the room in front of my eyes, distorting it until I forgot what a room was supposed to look like. One day, I would suffocate. Maybe my lungs would just quit their jobs, and stop working to get oxygen into my body. Maybe my brain would be the first to quit, or maybe they would just go on strike and put me in a surprise-coma. No-one would notice here. Three people were already sleeping; someone passed out in the back would only be noticed by the cleaning staff. If this university even had cleaning staff.

“A very wonderful morning to all of you. No, seriously. Let’s get to work. The leisure days are over.”

_ I hate this class. Grading their exams is going to be dreadful, even if they’re mock exams. Maybe I can get Vanessa to suck my cock while I have to subject my eyes to their atrocities. She’s going to look so naughty on my desk. She’d better be wearing that skirt I bought her, and no panties, like I told her… I need to delete that e-mail, they can’t find it, even if I disguised it as a grade. That would be the end of my career, the end of young, dumb girls that are so easily impressionable. Good thing my wife is so in love with me, otherwise she’d be suspicious by now. Oh, meatloaf tonight! _

Chairs creaked all throughout the room. I sat frozen. There was a taste of metal in my mouth. I didn’t hear any of the other words the professor said. I saw his lips move, those thin lines in a dry desert of yellow. I saw his teeth, those disturbingly white pearls with hints of gold gleaming every now and then when he smiled his predator-smile that girls fell for, those girls who considered themselves so bad, so rebellious, for sleeping with a goddamn professor, but my ears were blocked as my nose. There were only still thoughts in my mind, those thoughts that not even my body’s emergency lockdown managed to ignore. I had to actively ignore them.

Talking had never helped. Anonymous tips were considered so rarely that they were practically useless; and, when right about a specific thing, anonymous probably never turned out to be so anonymous after all. Every call could be traced.

So I didn’t talk. I wasn’t a snitch. I kept my mouth shut, would’ve liked to keep my eyes shut, as slowly, slowly, I made my way to the front of the lecture hall, past students whose thoughts vanished from my head momentarily, past the professor who spared me a glance while talking, whose eyes were far away.

I held my breath, subconsciously at first, then consciously as my lungs began aching for air. Contrary to pop culture belief, people didn’t only realize they’d been holding their breaths when they started breathing again. How could they? Not breathing hurt. It was a dull throbbing at first, then a sharp stab to the rib cage, followed by another one, again and again and again. Not breathing meant stars in front of my eyes, meant nothingness invading my sight from all sides. I held my breath, and focused on it.

It got me through the hall, got me to the door, and got me out of there.

The hallway didn’t smell any better, the air was just as heavy. The walls were grey, and stained, and my lungs weren’t partial to the sensation, but there was still oxygen somewhere in here, and untrained as I was, I needed to breathe.

I stepped out of the door five minutes later. The air was getting colder by day; soon, London’s coldest temperature would be reached, and then we’d call it winter, although this rain, this annoying drizzle of water coming from the skies, would be all we’d get instead of snow. It was always the same. I liked the dreariness of winter. The dreadful weather made me feel better about staying inside all the time.

Now, outside so unwillingly, I shuddered. Another day of skipped class. Another reason why Dan was a fail.

There needed to be reliable medicine for soul and self-esteem. My self-esteem probably couldn’t be mended, and I would be seriously surprised if my soul ever got more than a touch of colour, but I could have a break from pretending, a break from (most) people.

The Sprinkle of Glitter Bakery was my unlikely safe haven. I spotted Darcy already from the street. Here, a scent of freshly baked goods wafted into my nose, and it was warm, and the air was soothing lotion on my plagued lungs. Darcy was sitting at a table, colouring or something like that; she was thinking about colours until she noticed me, and then obviously I couldn’t hear her thoughts anymore because we cancelled each other out, one not able to hear the thoughts of the other, a peaceful bliss. Louise appeared to be in the back. She was thinking about banana bread, and the lion king lyrics. Instrumental music was playing that sounded really fancy but was only the soundtrack to sappy music most of the time, and I felt good.

“Good morning, Darcy,” I said.

“Good morning, Dan!” She smiled at me only briefly, then looked down again. The trays were still filled to the brim, cakes and cookies and bread and bread rolls and pâtisserie. Louise had only opened the bakery half an hour ago, but the morning seemed to be a slow one. I was glad of it. It gave me time, and time was so confusingly linked with space that it gave me more of the latter, too, and on days like this one, I needed space to breathe, and think.

I also needed a hot beverage. My hair was damp, sticking to my forehead uncomfortably, and I, of course, didn’t have a water-repellent jacket, so I was simply damp all over. Not wet. Just damp. London.

Louise’s thinking stopped. I looked up.

“Dan!” she exclaimed half a second later. “It is so nice to see you! I’m a bit busy right now, and Darcy is all focused on her drawing because she saw a video of a little girl drawing so well, but do make yourself a drink and help yourself to something to eat. Shouldn’t you be in class? Oh, you know what, we’ll talk later. Make yourself comfortable.”

“Good morning, Louise,” I said with a small smile. “Don’t worry about me! Thanks a lot.”

She didn’t hear me thanking her. She was already gone, vanished behind the purple curtains. I placed my backpack on the ground near Darcy, attempted to straighten my hair, which was impossible, damp as it was, and then moved behind the counter right into paradise. I thumbed through the folder of drink recipes and decided on a hot chocolate with a shot of peppermint, plus whipped cream and broken bits of mint chocolate that Louise called ‘Santa’s Little Helper’s Delight’. I didn’t choose it for the name, I chose it for the mint, okay?

Cold air streamed into the shop. A blonde girl had come in through the door. She was smiling softly, wearing a dark red beanie and a jacket that looked about as fit for the weather as mine. She greeted both me and Darcy in a voice that sounded like vanilla ice cream, fitting her smile perfectly. This was a customer I could deal with. The oven in the back beeped. Louise was busy. I was already behind the counter. I had no way out. I gave her a tense smile.

“I’d like something chocolate with marshmallows on top please, and if you could put a shot of vanilla into it?”

“It will just be a minute,” I told her.

“Oh, no worries! My boyfriend will be a few minutes, anyways, he’s on a health trip and currently obsessed with some energy boost drink thing that apparently is impossible to make at home. Green smoothies in this weather are inhuman, don’t you think so?”

I silently raised my finished drink to her, my drink that screamed everything but healthy, even if maybe a little green, and she chuckled.

“Luckily this place is just across the street from that juice bar, it’s lovely!”

“Yeah,” I said. Then I quickly busied myself. Making drinks came easily to me by now, mostly from making them for myself as I had to admit, and hers was a comparably easy request. Sometimes I got to make drinks for Darcy and Louise, and those were only worth the effort because of the praise I got as a reward. I had a feeling they were drilling me on purpose: a shot of this, a shot of that, whipped cream here and there and don’t forget the drizzle, Dan, and always use the white and the pastel pink marshmallows in equal parts. Don’t forget the cocoa powder on top if it’s a hot chocolate, Dan! You’re doing great.

As I sprinkled said cocoa powder on top of the little marshmallow mountain, I wondered what Phil would name this drink. Creativity wasn’t my strongest asset. Setting aside that I probably didn’t even have any strongest asset. Or strong asset. But I could borrow Phil’s, hopefully. Kingdom of Oxin was still my lullaby delight, so I would definitely end up giving it back by tonight. He was already writing quite a bit less due to our endless video gaming.

“Magical Marshmallow Mountain – No Boyfriends Allowed,” I said with a grin that was a little too smug, considering all this name really had going for it was the alliteration and me proving that I had listened to her, and handed her the cup. “Here you go.”

She laughed loudly. Huh. I hadn’t been aware I was that funny. When paying, she left a gracious tip that had me wondering just what the hell she was doing with her life and how there could be people around my age with boyfriends that picked them up and enough money to spare not only for hot drinks but also for tipping a very mediocre barista. Who wasn’t even a barista, and who probably still looked like a rat.

She hurried out when someone knocked on the door, and promised to be back soon. I waved, which she luckily didn’t see. My own drink was still waiting for me. I picked it up with a sigh and, as I hadn’t had breakfast, helped myself to a croissant.

“I’m going to need your timetable,” Louise said from behind. “And a list of classes ‘most likely to be skipped’. Some ID would be helpful, too, and a way for me to pass your salary to.”

I turned around, and my mouth got cold in the movement because it was hanging wide, wide open. Great. Now I was a dumbly gaping, curly-haired chipmunk with a piece of food in both hands so that I couldn’t even move much. What had she just said?

“I’m hiring you, by the way, didn’t I mention that? It is honestly getting ridiculous how much time you spend here and how much you help me, and all I can give to you are snacks for the boyfriend. I don’t know what I’d do without you anymore-“

“First of all,” I said a little too loudly, having finally recovered control over my mouth, “not my boyfriend. Secondly, you really don’t want to hire me, I have sold maybe seven drinks and one bread.”

“I really do want to hire you,” Louise insisted with a big, toothy smile, the one that showed Darcy really was her daughter. “As I said before you interrupted me so unnecessarily, because you’re not getting a say in this, I don’t know what I’d do without you anymore, so I need to legally bind you. Which is why next time you come see us, you’re bringing valid ID and I’m bringing a contract.”

“But,” I said.

“No,” she said.

“But,” I repeated.

“No!” Darcy jumped up from her chair, shaking her little fists at me and swinging her little blonde pigtails around. Would it be pathetic to admit I was actually slightly intimidated? “Dan, you stay, you and boyfriend-“

“Not my boyfriend!”

“-not hungry anymore, everyone is happy. Okay?”

I was being bossed around by a kid who wasn’t even in primary school yet. And I really needed to stop telling them about how infuriating Phil was. I needed to stop telling them things in general. I didn’t want to start depending on this. I didn’t deserve this job. Eventually, Louise would realize what was already crystal-clear to me. I was an imposter in this cheerful atmosphere.

Darcy hopped over to us. My stomach did a little somersault when I glanced at her drawing. Unmistakably, it showed the three of us. Shit, she could also draw better than me already. Which wasn’t hard as I had no artistic inclination whatsoever, but she was four!

Lying to myself never worked. I already depended on the two of them. And now they insisted that they depended on me, too. I didn’t deserve their affections. Fighting was obviously useless here, and running not even possible, not with a drink in my hand like this and not with my tendency to stumble over every stone and get out of breath within three seconds of exercise. This applied to figurative running just as well as to literal running. I already depended on them, I couldn’t run and I didn’t want to run. This grave I was digging for myself kept getting deeper. It would be easy to vanish when everything fell apart, and pulled me apart with it. The net would rip, and I could just drop into sweet oblivion.

“Okay,” I finally said. “I don’t even know how to thank you, and I’m not terribly good with people and-“

“Oh, shut up,” Darcy said, hugging my legs. For her size, her strength was incredible. I quickly dropped my croissant on the counter and held on to the solid surface.

“I-”

“No, she’s right.” Louise rolled her eyes at me, even dropping her smile for a few seconds. I saw how much effort that cost her. I also saw how much effort it cost her not to hug me, like her daughter was already hugging me. I appreciated it. Both the hug and the not-hugging. I was allowed to be complicated, I hadn’t ever expected anyone to understand me. “Shut up. You said okay, it’s decided, I am the one who should be thanking you.”

I begged to differ, but actually saying so would have been a waste of breath. So I just nodded, and finally took a sip of my drink. It was lukewarm, and the whipped cream had mostly melted into the chocolate drink beneath, but it still tasted good and the much-needed warmth now came from inside. And from my legs that still had a tiny little heater clinging to them.

So it was settled. I was going to turn into a literal cheese ball.

I served eight more customers within the next two hours, and no-one, absolutely no-one, complained about me or the drink I served them. Not with words, at least, not with their voices. It wasn’t like I could know what they thought of me. What a rude barista, probably. What the hell happened to his hair? Who thought it was a good idea to hire him? Is that his normal expression or is he going to try and murder me? The old woman that I served a double shot of espresso to certainly looked like she was going to murder someone. Thinking about it, she probably already had.

Darcy, when she got fed up with drawing because her wrist hurt and she didn’t understand just how people got so good at it, insisted on hanging up some balloons. Louise, of course, kept them in the same drawer as the cake forks because it was the most logical option. The colours of the balloons fit the décor exceptionally well, all pink and purple and I forgot for a moment that I normally wasn’t partial to these colours.

I served nine more customers within the two hours after that.

And then seventeen within the next hour. Most of those didn’t only want drinks, they came mainly for Louise’s baked goods.

Thirty-four between three and four pm. I managed. I didn’t stumble and fall once, I didn’t scream at anyone once, and I never even once forgot to say goodbye, not even when I was already busy saying hello to the next customer in line. When I thought I couldn’t take it anymore, I pretended I was Phil. Which was pathetic, and I was fully aware, but being pathetic about Phil was inextricably carved into the monument of my shame.

Twenty-two between four and five pm. I had by now spent almost eight hours in here. A real shift, and I was only marginally closer to death. I was certainly less exhausted than I would have been if I had spent my day at university. Well. I had spent the majority of it sitting down, or gracefully leaning against the counter the way a giraffe would lean against a brick wall. Louise caught me in this position when she ventured out from behind the curtains again, wearing a clean apron, not one covered in flower, and very energetically whirling towards me. I stumbled back, now, and there was a loud bang.

I jumped. Those fucking balloons. Maybe I was a little tense after all.

Louise simply stood there and laughed at me, doubling over, her cheeks tinted an ever-brightening red.

“I’m done with all my preparing now,” she announced finally. “You can go home. Go study for those classes you missed today. Darcy! Come say goodbye to Dan.”

Darcy was already there, taking the opportunity now to cling to my legs again. She had brought my backpack over from the table. I lifted her up and gave her a proper hug. My arms were going to get ripped if I kept this up. I definitely shouldn’t let it come so far, bros would approach me on the street and ask me what techniques I was using, the horror!

“Bye, bye, Dan!”

“Bye, Darcy. Bye, Louise. Than-“

She beat me with a pink plastic spatula before I could even finish the word. I gasped.

“This is abuse! Employee abuse!”

“Have a wonderful evening! Don’t forget to bring your information and stuff when you come here next! And by ‘next’ I mean I’m expecting you tomorrow,” Louise, the abusive employer, said with a smile that was probably supposed to look evil. It didn’t.

“Yes, mum,” I sighed. I picked my backpack and my jacket up from the ground. “You should work on that villain expression of yours if you want to come across as any other thing than an angry puppy. Bye!”

Louise stuck her tongue out at me, and Darcy copied her mother. They were both giggling. How had I gotten into such a sweet family? Then, I was back in the rain. The weather hadn’t changed. It was still cold, still raining those little drops of water that made umbrellas useless because the wind carried them anywhere, and still grey outside, grey in grey in grey. There were so many clouds that I couldn’t even tell where the sun was behind them. I couldn’t tell if the sun was still there. It had to be. There wouldn’t be enough light to see the misery otherwise.

I was walking too slowly considering the rain, and considering this was still London. I really needed to stop philosophizing in the rain. A woman walked past me with her little dog. Half of its legs vanished in the puddles, and it still looked like the happiest dog alive as it jumped around in them, fur completely soaked. I could use some dogs to calm me down now. Shouldn’t Phil’s shift be over soon? I pulled out my phone. The shelter was easy to find on Maps. I hoped, at least, that I had found the right shelter. It was at an easy walking distance. Everything was at an easy walking distance. This was the sole reason we still put up with the insufferable landlord and all the other little quirks the building offered. Also, the tragic amount of stairs might be the only thing keeping up my semblance of health.

_ He’s so cute, I want him, I will put a little bow on him and I will buy him the comfiest little bed, I just can’t resist these eyes. I don’t care that Mum said no. _

_ How do five cats produce so much goddamned shit? _

_ It’s too much work, the kids don’t like it anymore, we can’t keep this dog. I will say we’re moving to South Africa. For my husband’s work. They have better offices over there. And for all the racial diversity. In a cosmopolitan world, it is important for children to grow up with people of all sorts of ethnicities, right? They will be so lonely without the dog. Maybe I can buy them a hamster. They’re less work. Right? _

_ We need to take her to the vet. This lump just keeps growing bigger. But what if he won’t operate on a gerbil? What if he will just kill her? It won’t hurt, but still, she deserves to live! He could give her a tiny prosthetic leg, she’d be so cool, they could put her in a movie. Has there been a movie on gerbils yet? I really should have some positive gerbil representation in Kingdom of Oxin. And they’re all going to have a prosthetic leg. She’s so happy. What if I take her home? _

Quite obviously, I had been led to the right place. And I had found Phil. Who was now thinking about me. Obviously. I was his flatmate, and there he was, wanting to adopt a gerbil. And I had thought he wanted a dog. Or a fish. How could he have such a big heart and be undoubtedly the most caring person in this shelter, and still believe himself to be unable to take care of a pet? We had had a discussion about this. Or three. The one unable to take care of anything alive, including myself, was obviously me.

I was stalling now, despite the rain. Phil’s thoughts still hadn’t come back to my mind. I attempted to ignore all the other ones that were quite prominently featuring, and pushed open the colourful door. There were tiny children’s hands all over it, and while a large part of my mind immediately jumped to wild fantasies about all the horror stories that might explain this, I did consider it more likely that the kindergarten next door had lent the shelter some hands. With the children still attached to them, of course. It would have really been better to not commence this train of thought at all.

My own thoughts certainly explained why I was so rarely mortified by other people’s.

_ The fucking brat. Thinks he is such a saint. Animals here, animals there. If I didn’t have a rent to pay. Who does he think he is, just getting all the best shifts and always with that stupid fucking smile? Maybe he went to a sort of special school. Intelligent? Phil Lester? Hah, my ass. He belongs more to the kindergarten than here, the goddamn child. _

These thoughts were familiar, so unsettlingly familiar. I immediately hated the guy behind the counter, with his badly-dyed blue fringe and his cold eyes. But I couldn’t just hate him. It was a good thing I already hated myself. Hadn’t I thought the exact same thoughts? Fuck. I was the worst person. I didn’t want to be like this asshole. I didn’t want to be this person anymore. But there was too much bad in the world for someone weak like me to survive being good.

I almost stormed up to him where he was sitting lazily behind a counter, talking to the platinum blonde woman that absolutely wasn’t moving to South Africa. I needed to learn how to properly punch someone. My very Winnie the Pooh-biased childhood hadn’t exactly made the fighting sort of me. Ha.

“And how can I help you? Hello?”

Was he talking to me? Shit, he was talking to me. What was I supposed to say? Yes, I am looking for my friend Phil, thank you. His eyes were so cold under that fringe, and my people skills were finished for the day. I considered turning around and just waiting outside. No people skills, no dogs. Maybe I could watch some sloth videos on YouTube.

“Dan?”

“Phil!” I exclaimed. The blue-haired asshole sighed audibly. He’d probably thought I was likeable, too. He must’ve felt that asshole-kinship I had so desperately been trying to block out. I ignored him, and turned to Phil, which was a bad idea, because now we were standing awkwardly in front of each other. Should there be a hug? I knew that I wanted one. That was argument enough. I waved, and hoped it would come off as an ironic sort of wave.

“I thought- your shift is over soon, no?”

“Twenty more minutes, Lester,” blue-fringe-guy answered. Phil just nodded, and smiled. He was too nice.

“Would you like to have a look at our dogs?” He winked at me.

I was fine. One hundred percent, completely fine. I wasn’t bothered at all by Phil winking at me, because this was innocent, not a euphemism, and also innocent in general; it was just a sign for an understanding between us, and also for me to ignore the idiot. Not me. The other one. Although I should’ve ignored me, too. I relaxed my hands at my sides so that they didn’t form fists anymore. I was fine. It was just that Louise and Darcy kept talking about Phil being my boyfriend, and I had already been on edge. Nothing more.

“Yes, please,” I said. The sun didn’t need to be shining anymore when Phil Lester smiled. It was secondary anyways. Had that thought really come from me? “And soon, please. I only have twenty minutes.”

We both broke into laughter as soon as we had stepped into the next hallway, and Phil had closed the door.

“Hey, Dan,” he wheezed. It sounded like there had been an attempt to sound earnest. “Thanks for picking me up.”

“I actually want to see those dogs, you know?” I grinned at him. When he touched my arm, it might have been an accident. It had been an accident. When I swayed, and touched his, it wasn’t. He didn’t need to know. “Also, I served one hundred and one customers today. And I’m hired.”

Phil’s eyes widened. I definitely hadn’t counted all of the customers, even making a little list on paper, to be able to tell him the exact number. I totally didn’t consider it a tradition. No. I had done that purely for myself.

“Dan, that is awesome! You deserve it so much! Can I hug you? I feel like-”

“Go ahead already,” I said. Maybe too impatiently. Definitely too impatiently. Not for Phil, though. He immediately enveloped me in a bone-crushing hug. He had said I deserved the job. I wanted to believe him so badly. I just wanted to be good. I wanted to be good enough for the good things that were happening to me all of a sudden. I was at the foot of a mountain. It was stunning, beautiful, and frightening. And I was scared. Getting the bad deserved had been dreary, but easy, and I was weak. Now Phil was there. His warmth might just make me brave enough to start the climb.

“Congratulations,” he whispered.

“Thank you,” I managed to say. “Before I start to cry, can we go look at dogs?”

“We can even cuddle dogs,” Phil said gravely, but with the biggest smile.

And so we did.


	10. Ten

In the living room of mine and Phil’s shared apartment, precisely at noon on this fateful Wednesday, two things shattered simultaneously. When my mug hit the floor and broke into realistically about a hundred pieces, the earsplitting noise resounded throughout the entire apartment. Hot chocolate soaked into the carpet and into my socks. I would’ve preferred the sensation of hot chocolate in my stomach instead of between my toes, but what I preferred rarely mattered to the world. Which was very much sentient when I wanted it to be, and wanted to be angry at it. When my illusions shattered, no noise was heard. Neither of the shatterings made the world stop, or just slow down. It didn’t wait a second for me. My heart beat on. My lungs pumped oxygen into my body.

My body might have been functioning, but there was a loop in my mind, a loop I knew only too well.

You’re not good enough. You will never be good enough.

And I wasn’t. How had I dared to hope? How had I dared to let these illusions into my mind, and how had I come to believe them to be real? How had I been able to convince myself that not going to university for a week was fine? How had I been able to convince myself that maybe I was fit for the job at Sprinkle of Glitter Bakery? How had I been able to convince myself that this might be the moment my life started to change for the better, and that maybe I deserved at least some happiness?

I didn’t deserve any happiness. I didn’t deserve to go to university, and to end up successful in life. I didn’t deserve to have a roof over my head, and to pay for it myself, and to pay for my own food, and I didn’t deserve to have all those privileges and have Phil pay for them as he currently did. I didn’t deserve Phil; but that much, I had known.

My mug lay shattered on the floor that I wanted to lie down on, face-down, until this day was over, and I might have been self-destructed, I might have not minded dying, but I very much would have minded having cuts on my face from all the porcelain pieces.  I also very much minded planting my face into a carpet soaked with hot chocolate. Or lukewarm chocolate by now.

In two hours, I was to have a mock exam. I had attended a grand total of about three and a half classes. I had not studied. On the contrary. Me and Phil had spent the previous night watching animé. Phil didn’t even know I had a scheduled mock exam. I never told Phil anything about university. He had become my lantern in all the dark, my guide through all of this confusion, and I didn’t want the grey dust that university was to dull his shine even in the slightest. It was stupid, and childish, and all I wanted to do was cry. I couldn’t even move from my spot.

“Dan?”

Of course Phil had heard. Of course he was here, somewhere behind me. I could physically see the look of concern on his face from where he was standing completely outside my view.

“Don’t come in,” I pressed out through gritted teeth. My voice was betraying me, betraying my cause. This probably was how I had come to have illusions. I couldn’t trust myself, and I should’ve known. “It’s okay. I just broke a mug. I’m fine. Just going to-”

I broke off. What was I going to do? Even speaking, even just standing here cost me too much effort, exhausted me to the point where I could have easily pulled a ‘Sleeping Beauty’, except for the part where she was beautiful and I obviously wasn’t. I knew, somewhere in my mind, that I had to clean up this mess, but how was that supposed to work?

“You can go back- Just- I-”

A tear rolled down my cheek. Great. Now this was going to help solve the situation. I held my breath. I couldn’t start sobbing, not now. Phil had seen me cry too often. He’d been so happy all last week that the apartment felt another ten times brighter just in his presence than it did normally, bright and warm and comfortable. I didn’t want him to worry again. I didn’t want to be the attention seeker that I was anymore. I’d had enough of myself. I held my breath, because releasing it might have turned into a scream. A perfectly unreasonable scream. I was lucky. I was just a whiny little bitch.

“Don’t move,” Phil said, now sounding slightly alarmed. “I’ll get the vacuum cleaner. Please don’t hurt yourself while I’m gone, okay?”

Phil didn’t trust me, either. Certainly not with myself. And he was mightily right about that, too. My legs hurt. I just wanted to sit down, or lie down, and I didn’t want this anymore, I didn’t want any of this anymore. My feet were cold.

“Okay,” I said nevertheless. I was a pathetic wretch, and I would have done anything for Phil. Who was my flatmate. Totally platonic. I didn’t think he was attractive or anything like that. I wasn’t in love with his childish mind. I didn’t regret that he appeared to never wank in my immediate vicinity, not at all, because I so wasn’t interested in knowing what he wanked to, and I also definitely wasn’t a creepy person at all. And I didn’t obsess about it when I was in the shower.

And here I was, doing it again. Trying to lie to myself. It was a fruitless effort. I was infatuated with Phil Lester. I was willing to overlook all the deeper flaws that I had yet to discover; flaws more profound than the fact that he left his sock everywhere, or that he kept opening the kitchen cupboards but never closed them. This was most of why I didn’t deserve Phil Lester’s friendship at all.

He was too good for me.

I started breathing again, too weak to keep holding on to the scraps of air in my lungs. At least I managed not to scream. I did flinch, though, when Phil’s voice suddenly startled me to a halt in my downward spiral of childish self-hatred and tedious, whiny despair.

“I’m back,” he said in a soft voice, the voice he had used to talk to the animals at the shelter last week. I suppressed a sob. There was rustling behind me, but I was too occupied with the white noise of my mind to figure out what he was doing. I literally trusted him blindly. Nature had failed with me. Where were my self-preservation instincts?

“I’m plugging in the vacuum cleaner,” he announced.

“Can it clean the vacuum that is my soul?” I was attempting a joke, but I sounded choked, and Phil sounded concerned, and the atmosphere was all wrong for self-deprecating humour, and there was too much honesty feeling in my words to make them sound even remotely funny. Fuck. Now I couldn’t even construct bad puns anymore. I smiled through the tears. Something felt right again. The world was grey, and stressful, and I wasn’t strong enough to face it, not even to simply survive and certainly not to have a positive impact, to have any impact at all. I would never become the hero, as much had always been clear, and I would never become the villain, neither. I was of a hue that tinted the world a disgusting shade, and that would never change. This was dreary; it was devastating. It was easy. I knew where I belonged. The gutter was my place. The stars were too far away for even my eyes to reach. My own shadows would always block out the lights.

“You have a beautiful soul, Dan,” Phil said. He didn’t scold, although he probably would’ve liked to. His voice was too soft. There was no harshness behind it, just plain, raw, honesty, and it hurt me to hear how much I had instinctively lied to him, too. I didn’t have a beautiful soul, except if he considered a black void beautiful. He didn’t. I knew. It was one of the evils in Kingdom of Oxin. Not my soul, but the void; Tabitha and Eliza were more afraid of it than I was of commitment.

Luckily, the vacuum cleaner was too loud to continue this conversation. I was too tired for sarcasm. I just wanted to drop dead to the floor. I might just drop dead to the floor. The lights were bright in here, to bright to submerge myself in the pit of self-loathing and also too ugly as well as too literal to be reminiscent of the figurative light that Phil emitted, the only light my black insides could miraculously stand. I was the biggest fucking drama queen of them all. The worst thing was, I couldn’t bring myself to stop. I knew it should’ve been easy, but I couldn’t, just couldn’t bring myself to be happy, to flip that switch. I hated myself more for it.

I felt Phil move next to me with the cleaner as he was getting rid of the physical remains of today’s shatterings, and stood even more frozen than before. My arms were starting to ache.

I didn’t want him to have to deal with the less physical broken bits, too, but I had already been too selfish, had already pulled him in, and it was too late. Yet another reason why Dan was a fail. I couldn’t even keep my constructed misery to myself.

“Okay,” Phil finally said. “You can move safely now. Take off the socks, okay? Take off the socks and then go sit on the sofa. Do you want a new drink? I was going to make myself a coffee, anyways. Then I’ll join you, and we can talk if you want to.”

Numb inside, I followed his instructions, that were overly detailed and really would’ve made any normal person feel like they were being ordered about, being treated like a child, but honestly, even just taking off my socks seemed like such a big task that I couldn’t have taken bigger steps. I took off my socks. I left them where the stain was already on the carpet, which was less intentional and more a matter of just dropping them right where I had already been standing. I trudged on to the sofa. I sat down.

I realized then that Phil was still standing by the door, looking at me expectantly. Naturally, I could deal with this and panic didn’t immediately ensue. I was fine with people expecting stuff from me; most of the time, I was able to live up to their expectations and if that wasn’t the case, I was definitely mature enough to admit it calmly, and still recognize my worth as a human being.

I started crying harder.

“Dan,” Phil said.

“No,” I said. I didn’t want him to keep trying to fix me. And I wanted him to fix me so badly. I had so foolishly thought I was going somewhere, finding my own path, even if it was in his light. If you found your way through a dark forest only because you had a working flashlight, you sure owed something to the flashlight, especially if the flashlight was a living, breathing, human person, but you were still the one who had ultimately found the way. Apparently, I wasn’t even good enough to find it with the brightest flashlight in the world. I didn’t want my living, breathing, human flashlight named Phil to have to take me by the hand and lead me out, and I certainly didn’t want to reach for said hand and hold on to it, because eventually Phil would get tired of my dark void of a paradox forest, and he would take his hand from mine, and I would be even more lost than before, because I wouldn’t recognize the darkness around me anymore. How would I communicate this mess of a thought? Not at all. “Please. Just. Like, go, or something. Or don’t. I don’t know.

I didn’t know anything except other people’s vilest thoughts.

I could just go to the exam knowing nothing. I could just tune in on some brainy person’s thoughts and copy their answers, rephrase them, I could do that. I could pass this exam. I wouldn’t be the only one cheating their way through university.

It would make me feel like even more of a failure. When I had thought I was at the bottom of the pit, suddenly, there was yet another cliff I could fall off. And would, eventually, if I was to get this degree I didn’t want. The law books were staring at me, tempting me, those textbooks my parents had spent too much money on. I hated them. Not as much as myself, but probably a close fifth place, or something, They were shiny, and new, and I didn’t want to spend the next years of my life with them. I didn’t even want to be a fucking lawyer! And I still hadn’t figured out why Phil was looking at me this way, with those open, searching eyes, in this waiting stance. What was I supposed to do?

“Do you want hot chocolate?”

Oh. I hadn’t answered the question. Fuck. I hadn’t answered this simple question that I should be able to answer. I wasn’t going to be able to even bullshit a response to any question this afternoon. The professor was likely to be thinking about illegal sexual relationships with one student or another. I didn’t want to go to that place. I didn’t want to go ever again.

But did I want hot chocolate? Yes. I didn’t deserve it after spilling mine, after breaking the mug, but I wanted it. And I was a selfish person.

“Please,” I said. Not yes. Just please. I was pathetic.

“Okay, good,” he said. “Just keep on breathing. I’ll be back in a minute.”

I kept on breathing. Phil moved around in the kitchen. I breathed. The microwave beeped. I breathed. The kitchen cupboards were shut noisily. I breathed. I wasn’t even astounded at the noise. I should’ve been. But I was busy breathing, and slightly crying, and not sobbing because I was already a mess, and I didn’t need to also be a sobbing mess. I wasn’t going to let go this last bit of an illusion of dignity. Yet.

Phil walked back into the living room, carefully carrying two large mugs. He placed them on the coffee table and sat down. I couldn’t read his thoughts. I could hear Troye thinking now as he was walking up the hallway to his apartment. Wow. Other people existed. I might have blocked that piece of information out for ten minutes.

“Do you want to talk?” Phil asked.

“Um,” I said. Or, I croaked. I didn’t sound particularly human, and I didn’t feel particularly human anymore. Which, considering my opinion of humanity, might have been a good thing in some cases, but currently, it wasn’t.

“Or a hug?”

“I need to study,” I blurted out. Here I was, a crying mess just weeks into my life as a university students, literally still in the part of my education that was supposed to be easy, complaining about how I needed to study. I was an ungrateful, shitty person. “I haven’t studied. I haven’t gone to classes. I know nothing!”

Phil silently handed me my mug. I took a sip.

“I can’t do this,” I said.

Phil furrowed his eyebrows. He opened his mouth, he was going to say something, but I was faster.

“I have a mock exam in like an hour and a half and I literally know nothing and I don’t really want to know anything I hate law and my professor is so awful for this class and I can’t breathe there and these books are so evil look at them they are evil,” I rushed out. My voice broke like seventeen times, and it was a miracle that Phil understood any of my choked words, but it seemed like he did understand.

“Dan,” he said.

“I don’t want to be a lawyer,” I sobbed. Wow. Another shattered illusion. It was okay. I didn’t need my internal organs intact. They could be pierced by shards of glass for all I cared. Just break my lungs. They never worked properly anyways. “I don’t want to be a lawyer and I don’t want to go to university. I don’t want to do this exam and I don’t want to do any exam. I am weak and I can’t deal with this and I don’t want to do any of it! I don’t want to do any of it! I won’t do it.”

“Dan, it’s okay,” Phil said.

“No, it’s not,” I wailed pathetically.

“It is,” Phil said. “Do you want a hug now?”

“Yes,” I said.

He took the mug from my hands carefully and placed it back on the table. Then, his arms were around me, and I felt warmer immediately, and I hated myself for it. By the time I felt I could let go of him without falling apart, the hot chocolate was probably lukewarm chocolate again, and I had managed to stop crying. Phil let me go when I moved out of the embrace, but he still sat close to me, he still watched my every move. I didn’t want him to go. I didn’t need personal space. I needed his warmth. I needed to selfishly keep him close to me.

“So you have an exam today,” he said.

“Yes,” I said.

“You could’ve told me, I would’ve helped. Or tried to help.”

“I didn’t- You weren’t- I wanted-”

“Of course you don’t have to tell me anything. I’m sure you have reasons.”

“I just didn’t want to be thinking about uni when I was doing things with you.” Wow, way to make things sound worse. It was a good thing Phil was not very receptive to innuendo. At least, I hoped. “It’s just I hate it so much and I didn’t want to drag you into it and also the dust, you know? Like. I couldn’t cover you in the dust.”

He didn’t know. How would he know? He couldn’t see the poisonous dust floating above us, threatening to permanently damage him.

“Okay,” he said. “I just want you to know I’m here for you. So, you have an exam and you haven’t studied. Or been to the classes.”

“Yes,” I said weakly.

There was a pause. I couldn’t hear Phil’s thoughts, but I could certainly hear him thinking. My mind was blank. The clock on the wall in the kitchen kept ticking.

“I want to drop out,” I said. The thought hadn’t been there before, not in this way; it was created at the same time as the words were already leaving my mouth to go hang in the thick air of the room. They tasted bitter on my tongue, bitter like black coffee. They woke me up like black coffee did, too. I said them again. And again. I said them five times. Phil listened, not saying anything. I whispered them, I shouted them, I tried them out. Phil just listened.

“Yes,” I said then, when I was convinced Phil would be calling the authorities within the next minute and I’d be driven right off to the next closed psychiatric hospital. Which was where I probably belonged for many reasons. In a secluded room, with the stereotypical straight jacket and all. I most definitely belonged there. Phil looked quite worried indeed, but I hadn’t succeeded in erasing this earnest concern from his eyes, or the soft smile from his face. I didn’t want to erase it anymore. I just wanted to erase myself.

“I’m proud of you,” he said.

What?

I stared at him incredulously. What the hell had he just said and how had he come to the conclusion that of all things, he was now proud of me?

“It’s a tough decision to make,” he continued. “And if you feel it’s the right thing for you, it will be the right thing. You can trust yourself. I’m proud that you admitted you might have chosen 

a path that’s not right for you.”

“Um,” I said intelligently. He couldn’t be real. He was real, though. His knee pressing against mine was real.

“You don’t have to stay in situations that make you this miserable, Dan,” he said. This excessive use of my name was unsettlingly calming. I didn’t want to like it. So, of course, I liked it. My heart fluttered like a twelve-year-old’s every time he did, and he did it a lot. If I ever died of a heart attack, it was Phil Lester’s fault and I wanted him to get an award for it. “It’s good you’re doing what feels right.”

“Nothing ever feels right,” I said, a little more honestly than I had intended to, and thus a little more depressingly because that was my reality. Depressing.

“You’ll get there,” he said with so much certainty in his voice that I physically couldn’t help believing him. Fuck. I couldn’t start believing him. I couldn’t let my emotions get out of control like this. “I’m sure you’ll get there. You’re a great person, Dan. I appreciate you.”

I started crying again.

He hugged me, then, carefully, slowly, and he only let the tentative gesture become a real hug when I melted into it. Yes. Phil Lester was going to be the death of me in both staying with me and leaving me. I could imagine worse causes of death. Scratch that. I had imagined worse causes of death. I had imagined all of them. I couldn’t possibly die without it feeling like a déjà-vu. I was that pathetic. But also, Phil Lester, the person with possibly the most beautiful soul in the entire endless multiverse appreciated me. And even if he appreciated just the lie of me that he saw, for a moment, I could relish his words and his hugs and his presence in my life. For a moment.

Because nothing ever lasted, right?

I felt disgusting when he let go of me. Disgusting for my thoughts, for my selfishness, and for my sticky feet. We stared at each other in silence. There was something in the air. No. There wasn’t. I was imagining something in the air. I was imagining this gleam in Phil’s eyes. I was imaging that we could ever be something more. I already didn’t deserve the bit of Phil that apparently, he had given to me, or rather, I had robbed of him with my lies.

Breathing was hard all of a sudden. It was as if I was breathing through a plastic straw that had been twisted, and wouldn’t let any air through; I was breathing, but there was no air reaching my lungs. Maybe my trachea had been bent, or snapped, or just stopped working. Maybe my trachea was but a broken plastic straw. Or maybe I was being dramatic.

“I think I’ll take a shower,” I said quickly. Phil nodded fervently. Wow. Apparently, he had been stuck in thought as well.

“Do that,” he said. “And we can cook together later! Only if you want to, of course. I bought farfalle. Or, like, bow-tie pasta. But I always thought they looked more like butterflies. And I like butterflies better than bow-ties. But that’s irrelevant, sorry.”

“Everything I say is irrelevant,” I said. And because I was already humiliated and basically naked in front of Phil while wearing sweatpants and a long-sleeve shirt, I kept talking. “I like when you tell me about things. I like listening to you.”

The smile that lit up his face was worth every word.

“I-” he said. “Thank you.”

“No, thank you,” I said, and then, before this situation could get any more cheesy and sticky, I stood up.

“Uh, I’ll just, shower, and then I’d very much like to cook,” I said. My glance fell on the discarded mugs on the table, and of course the guilt immediately overtook me. I was like that. It was always the small, unimportant things that got to me. I hated disappointing people. I hated myself for constantly doing it. I really needed to get away and get into that shower, now. All the salt water wasn’t beneficial to my, already horrid at its best, complexion. But I couldn’t just leave those cups here. “And I’ll also reheat the hot chocolate. After I shower.”

I didn’t wait for his answer. Instead, I finally took off to the bathroom. I had almost forgotten my exam. Almost. I was going to ignore it, for now. And maybe I was going to regret that decision tomorrow. Probably not. I was going to regret it in ten years, when I would be without perspective for the future and penniless. Oh wait. You could turn out that way nowadays if you had a university degree, too, because those were now useless. What a cheerful outlook.

I probably wasn’t even going to be alive in ten years.

It took me quite a long time to actually get in the shower. Existential dread did not help with being a functional human being. Which I had established I wasn’t, even if I now had a job, even if I lived in a flat, even if my first paycheck was going to come in soon. I lived off the pity of other people. And even though they might think that there was a symbiosis going on, I knew very well I was a parasyte.

_ The icy wind burned Tabitha’s eyes. Eliza had long given up and closed hers. She was clinging on to the flyon carrying her for dear life amidst the labyrinth of icicles that the majestic creatures had to dodge, high up in the clouds. Below them, there mountains were ragged, torn, with holes in them, sometimes tinged slightly yellow as they were rusting in the constant snowstorm. With every risky manoeuvre, Tabitha felt like she might have to puke. Some of the mountains were covered in snow like in socks, but they were cold, colder than Tabitha’s feet had ever been in this world. She wished she had warmer socks for this adventure in the freezer of Oxin, but she doubted that socks literally made out of snow would be of great help. They narrowly dodged another icicle. Every water molecule in the air was frozen, into snowflakes, and icicles, but miraculously, there was running water below them, a massive, bubbling, scary-looking river. _

And while I was standing under the hot water, staring mindlessly at the tiles on the shower wall and trying to convince myself to turn off the water and reach for the shampoo bottle before I would have to take a cold shower and also before our water bill, which was a thing I hadn’t even been aware of a year ago, would rise to impossible numbers, Phil had gone to work. He was all the good things that I wasn’t.

Was there such a profession as a professional failure? Because boy was I qualified.

I finally managed to actually clean myself, soap and all, but no water and no chemical product that I didn’t even want to know the ingredients of in the world could have washed away my faults, or scrubbed the darkness from my soul.

_ It roared through the hollowed-out mountains, louder than any thunder she had ever heard, and she shivered doubly, from looking down and from the cold. The flyon flew faster. She just barely swallowed a desperate scream for help. Who could have helped her, up here? But there was a glimmer of gold in the distance, a shine of hope? It turned this light was not the sun, not the sky in a place where the endless winter turned into spring. From afar, it looked like a luminous ladder. _

Phil had said he appreciated me. But did he trust me? Why hadn’t he told me about the Kingdom of Oxin, about such a big part of his life? I wasn’t entitled to know; and yet I knew, and it wasn’t by his choice. It wasn’t by mine, either, but that mattered little. I was invading his privacy, and I relished it. I loved Kingdom of Oxin. I had no right to. Phil was my flatmate. Maybe he was my friend. That didn’t mean he had to tell me everything. But I wasn’t as secure in myself and my worth as he was. I wasn’t respectful, and good, and patient. I knew logically I wasn’t entitled to have him tell me about his story, this part of his life that was so important to him, but I wondered why he hadn’t told me. Why did he feel he couldn’t share this thing that made him happy? Did he fear I was going destroy it somehow? Why?

The water turned cold. Shit. Well, at least I was already clean.

Phil stopped writing when I turned off the shower, or at least he stopped not thinking about me. When I emerged fully dressed from the bathroom, and by fully dressed I meant clean underwear, marginally cleaner black sweatpants than those I had worn before and a short-sleeved equally black shirt, he was in the kitchen, whistling an unrecognizable tune.

“Hey,” he greeted. “Feel better?”

I nodded.

“I know it’s only like half past one pm, but you said last week that time was an illusion, and I am currently very hungry, which is not an illusion as far as my stomach is concerned, so, what do you think of a dinner at approximately three pm?” Phil, holding a tomato in one hand and the pasta in the other, looked adorable as his eyes searched my face for a reaction. I would’ve probably gone along with any suggestion he made, and this was a good one. My stomach reminded me not very gently that all I had put into it so far today had been three dry biscuits and like a tenth of the amount of water I was supposed to have drunk by this time of the day.

“I’m absolutely down for that,” I assured him. “Where’s the tomato sauce?”

“We’re going to make it from scratch,” Phil announced, waving the tomato around like a trophy. I just stared at him. “Farfalle po- pomo- pomodoro? Pomodoro, I think. Or something like that. The Pope would lynch me.”

“The Pope isn’t even Italian,” I said. “An entire country of people to possibly lynch you, and you go for the Pope. But they won’t need to lynch you because you will not survive me cooking something from scratch.”

“Just you wait,” Phil sang. He was still waving the tomato around. It looked dangerous. I feared that he might throw it at me.

“Okay, okay,” I said. “Masterchef, give me something easy to do.”

I got to cut up the onion into small cubes. Yay. But what did a little more crying matter at this point, honestly? I also got to boil the water for the pasta, I remembered to put salt into it all by myself, and then I got to prepare some of the fresh tomatoes while Phil started caramelizing the onions. Which was a step I didn’t get in the slightest. Tomato sauce was, when not the sugary kind that came in squeeze bottles instead of jars, savoury, as far as I was concerned, and not even McDonald’s tomato sauce contained caramel. Phil laughed when I pointed this out to him. Nevertheless, I was pretty proud of myself. I didn’t cut or scald myself once, and I remembered to check the time when the pasta was in the pot.

“I could be a chef instead of a lawyer,” I announced triumphantly, and only with the slightest bitter undertone. Phil looked up from the herbs and spices I hadn’t even known were hidden in those cupboards that he was now contemplating with all the expertise of someone who watched too many cooking shows.

“You can be anything you want to be,” he said solemnly. “There it is! Can’t have this sauce without oregano.”

 

“If you say so,” I said skeptically, referring to both. It was probably a plus that I could joke about my failed university career without bursting into tears. Maybe.

“I do,” he said. “Salt, pepper, oregano, this stuff, this stuff. How is the pasta coming along?”

“It’s not even remotely done,” I informed him. “It needs like- like three more minutes. Or five. I don’t know.”

It turned out more than fine, with Phil having finished his sauce and trying the pasta approximately every thirty seconds, until it was perfectly cooked in his opinion. The sauce he had made was actually good, like, very good. He had even bought parmesan cheese.

“Did you plan this?” I asked seven bites into my meal. “Because this is awesome. And I wasn’t aware that we had even half the things.”

“I might have,” he said mysteriously. There was something about his expression that I couldn’t read. “I might not have.”

“Whatever,” I scoffed. “It’s delicious, in any case.”

“Thank you.” Phil smiled widely. I had caused two of those smiles today. For a brief moment, I forgot that I had also caused a number of frowns.

An hour later, when the food had been eaten, the kitchen had been cleaned and the carpet had been scrubbed, which didn’t get rid of the hot chocolate stain completely, but did get rid of the stickiness, when the other hot chocolate had been reheated and drunk for dessert and digestion had been started, leaving both of us with absolutely no motivation to move from the sofa ever again or make just the slightest mental effort, we decided to play Mario Kart.

We started fairly well and, due to my exhausted and slightly distracted state because of a certain neighbour getting a little horny, on a fairly equal footing. I wasn’t even paying a lot of attention.

_ Every single person on grindr is sixty-three and not simply kinky anymore, but a molester, I swear. Can’t there be normal gays in this area? Those are probably not on grindr. I did not come for this kind of messages, I came to come. Ha. Poetic. My mum would be delighted if I put that in a song. I just want some people to talk to that I can be myself around, and I would prefer not having to leave this place for that. Or staying up all night and sleeping all day. _

I started to pay attention again when Phil fell off the rainbow road twice as much as I did despite my not looking at the screen very attentively. Or barely looking at the screen at all. I couldn’t tell what he was thinking about. He was too aware of my presence, apparently. I didn’t blame him. I had, feeling small and sad and generally like I might be walking now, but also like the drying carpet was becoming more and more attractive to lie on by the minute, opted to sit very close to him. If he had noticed, he hadn’t said anything. I was feeling to low to even care. This was the beauty of deciding that if this was to ever be over, I was just going to let everything end. There was going to be nothing afterwards, gentle, welcoming, scary nothing. Like the nothing that Phil kept falling into.

“Phil,” I said as he fell off an eleventh time. That I promptly fell off, too, didn’t matter. “What the hell?”

“Sorry! I just-” I couldn’t help looking at him and immediately regretted it. Oh well. This round was the worst I had ever played anyways. I could afford falling off thirteen more times because of Phil Lester blushing. Shit. I had turned into a twelve-year-old, hadn’t I? Or just a ball of cheese. A mozzarella worth of the Guinness’ book.

“I kept thinking about those turtles on clouds and how amazing they are. Do you think they’re getting paid minimum wage for their work? What even is minimum wage in the Mario universe? Do they have social equally? Is it a monarchy? Why does only some plumber care about the princess? Are Mario characters aware that they exist in multiple universes? Are we just like them? I have so many questions about this game. Oh no, I’m rambling, I’m so sorry.”

His blush deepened. I wouldn’t stand for this. I wouldn’t let him be embarrassed about what I considered one of his greatest qualities.

“I love your creativity,” I blurted out. “It is amazing. You’re amazing, Phil.”

What had I just said? I almost dropped my controller, now, coming back to my senses. I was promptly mortified. I had said that I loved his creativity. Which was true. But I had said I _ loved _ it. I couldn’t just say that! I couldn’t just use the word love. Things were going to get awkward very fast. I didn’t dare look at Phil.

_ I don’t even fucking want sex, why am I here, why am I on grindr? I am so bored. I miss my friends. Why does Australia have to be so goddamn far away, and why do I have to be so socially inept? I want to be in a band, or literally just to play video games with someone. _

“Thanks, Dan,” Phil said finally. “I’m not that amazing, but thank you. You know. For not laughing at me.”

I bit my lip to stop myself from saying anything else. The pause that followed was awkward, but any further word would have only made the eventual pause worse. At least that was what I told myself.

We finished the colourful track after four times as much time as it normally took me.

Troye kept thinking about how lonely he was. This was worse than the horniness. This was devastating to listen to.

“Hey,” I said. “How about we ask that Troye guy to join us? He must be homesick, with all his friends literally across the world. I feel like- doing something nice? And like, I definitely owe him.”

I was not going to specifically mention my parents, and I could only pray that Phil wouldn’t, either. I couldn’t handle any more emotional distress today. I was already questioning my decision. I was willingly going to invite a stranger into my sanctuary. Except I knew all about his cheesy love songs, his homesickness and his porn habits. A stranger. Was this worth it? Yes. I needed a valid reason for my awkwardness other than the stupid schoolgirl crush I could not deny anymore. Also, listening to Troye dwell on memories from Australia really made me want to do something nice for him. What was this? Oh, oh no. I could not do deep reflection right now. Back to matters at hand. Did we know he was from Australia? Well, now we did. As it was common knowledge, I was terrific at recognizing accents. And the nicest guy on the planet. The second-nicest guy obviously, because the nicest guy was Phil. He didn’t even look surprised at my proposition. He literally hit himself in the face.

“I can’t believe I haven’t thought of that before!”

“Yeah,” I mumbled. Of course. I should have been able to predict this reaction. Phil was already out of the door. There hadn’t been anything in the air. Obviously. This was just another proof of my brain’s unreliability. I scrambled to run after him, and caught up just as he was ringing Troye’s doorbell. Now I was breathless, great. The thinking stopped immediately, and the door was pulled open barely two seconds later. Maybe this had been a good idea.

“Yes?”

Troye’s curls were unrulier than mine on humid day, but he, of course, suited them. I was not a dreamy popstar. It was a good thing I didn’t make a habit of sustaining more than one crush at once, and also a good thing that his eyes were the wrong shade of blue. Or a bad thing. Because how could a shade of blue possibly be wrong if there wasn’t a right one it could differ from?

I really should have focused on the conversation before Phil said my name.

“Dan’s idea, actually. We can take turns. Would you like to?”

“I can even bring a third controller,” Troye said, with bright eyes of the wrong blue, and tossing his phone into a basket out of sight. I swallowed hard, and tried my best to wipe the panic off my face. It was not the appropriate emotion currently. None of my emotions were ever appropriate.

I didn’t have to do much all night except sit in my sofa crease, smile occasionally, and slay both of them at Mario Kart. It was surprisingly pleasant. Troye was good company; he was calm, and polite, but not too polite; he was adequate at Mario Kart; and his presence in the room wasn’t asphyxiating. What was this thing about suddenly meeting good people? Or, like, people I could make myself believe were good people? That came as far as good went in this world, in humanity? I refused to believe in that bullshit that the world around you reflects your inner feelings. That just couldn’t be true. Why would the entire world adapt to me? I refused to believe that I only saw what I wanted to see. I saw, or heard, a lot of things I had never wanted to know. I didn’t understand what was happening to me, to my life. But who was I to complain about this calm before the storm?

The awkward tension between me and Phil was gone with him between us.

Troye, hours later, excused himself yawning. It was nine pm.

Phil slowly turned off the television. I watched his every move lazily, trying to ignore the heaviness that yet again seemed to be settling in the space between us. I was tired. Maybe I should just close my eyes, just fall asleep here. Dental hygiene could be neglected for one night.

Phil’s hand brushed against mine as he sat down, startling me awake again at the sudden cold of his fingers. He didn’t move them. The very edge of his pinky was touching the very edge of mine. It was so slight, so painfully unintentional a touch. I sat frozen, only slowly turned my head to look at him. He glanced at me with a smile. A smile that said: you can trust me. No, a smile in which I read, of which I hoped that it meant I could trust him. I wanted to trust him so badly.

I wanted him to be able to trust me. If he didn’t know about my curse, every ounce of trust could only be a farce. I knew it. I knew I would either end up by telling him or I would end up falling apart. Which, both, probably. It was inevitable. I was in too deep, too damn dramatically deep.

That didn’t mean I was any less terrified.

What had I said about not being able to handle any more emotional distress today?

I opened my mouth to speak. Phil was faster. I closed my mouth again as he began to speak instead.

“There’s this thing I do,” he said. “That’s pretty important to me. It’s a story I write, and post online? I mean, it’s not that cool, but I just feel- I don’t know, I thought you might not laugh at me if I tell you. Because, as I said, it’s pretty important to me. In my life. So. I guess I’m just making it a big deal?”

I felt disgustingly warm and mushy inside, like I was being heated up very gently and dissolving into a puddle like butter in the microwave. For a moment, I was unable to do anything but smile stupidly. Phil fidgeted next to me. His hand never moved, though. It wasn’t cold anymore, it was just there, and so was the trust apparently that I had doubted only hours ago. Sometimes anxieties from the shower apparently resolved themselves. Very rarely; but sometimes. This time.

“That sounds really cool,” I said. I knew it was cool. But I couldn’t exactly bust out my secret now. No. It seemed like the best and most mature decision possible to bury myself deeper under this dirty laundry pile of lies. “I’m sure it’s amazing, and people love it. What is it about?”

The words tasted like shit in my mouth. This had to be confirmation I was saying the right thing. Right? Or was it all wrong? Was this lying, or was I just telling half the truth? Because I was sure that the story was amazing, and that people loved it; I also simply knew those things to be facts. Oh well. I was going to hell in any case, and I did not have time for another existential crisis right now. Phil’s eyes were brighter than any heaven that could possibly exist.

“It’s a fantasy story, set in this universe that’s kind of really hard to explain because I added so many things to it. It has fairies as main characters, though! I know it seems really childish.”

He needed to stop fidgeting like that right now, and bringing himself down, because that was my thing and I would not let Phil Lester feel this way about himself. If the situation had been different, I might have shut him up by kissing him. It would have had to be very different, admittedly. But still. I found a way to make him stop that terrified me slightly less, and wouldn’t emotionally scar him for life.

“Read to me?”

And that was how, three minutes later, I found myself in Phil Lester’s bed. Fully clothed, of course; lying on top of his blanket, even. But I was in Phil’s bed with Phil Lester next to me, and the room was dark except for the light coming from his laptop screen. This took listening to him tell his story to a whole new level.

Maybe I would tell him someday. Maybe I would die before that. Maybe I would fall asleep before leaving this bed. It was likely, considering how many times I had fallen asleep to Kingdom of Oxin. For now, though, I just wanted to listen to the very beginning. For tonight, he didn’t need to know that I had read it.

“Tabitha woke up to a golden morning on this day, wide awake much too early, as the sun was just beginning to rise and to cover her floor in golden rays of light. The fields outside, the sky; all was bright, and beautiful. And yet, something hadn’t been quite right over the past few days. She jumped out of her stack of leaves, and barely took the time to stretch before she rushed over to where it was lying. The map that was going to change her life. Where had she put it?”

“Sounds like you,” I giggled.

“Shush! Rude!” Phil exclaimed. I saw in his eyes that he was laughing, too. “Let me read. Okay, as I was saying: Where had she put it? On the table, of course; and right in the middle of it, too. It was hidden under piles of leaves, and food, and empty wooden bowls. Tabitha took a deep breath. The golden sunlight had reached the orange river, making it scintillating, and beautiful on its leisure path through fields of sweet grains. She sighed. Here was the problem. Here was the start of her quest. The orange juice, the fairies’ most important nourishment, their source of life, and their source of magic on top of it, had always been there; smooth, soft, and just the right amount of sticky for a refreshing beverage. But now, recently, pulps had started to appear…”

 

* * *

 

 

_But do thy worst to steal thyself away,_   
_For term of life thou art assurèd mine;_   
_And life no longer than thy love will stay,_   
_For it depends upon that love of thine._   
_Then need I not to fear the worst of wrongs,_   
_When in the least of them my life hath end._   
_I see a better state to me belongs_   
_Than that which on thy humour doth depend._   
_Thou canst not vex me with inconstant mind,_   
_Since that my life on thy revolt doth lie._   
_O, what a happy title do I find,_   
_Happy to have thy love, happy to die!_   
_But what's so blessèd-fair that fears no blot?_   
_Thou mayst be false, and yet I know it not._

_\-  William Shakespeare_

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yes, i copied down shakespeare's 92nd sonnet. for the record, i was in the middle of writing this chapter when i read this sonnet for the first time. and second, third, fourth, and fifth.  
> i felt it really reflected dan's feelings - i might have horribly misinterpreted it.
> 
> in any case, i'm really grateful for you wonderful people that take a little bit of time out of your days to read my work! thank you so much.


	11. ELEVEN - SPECIAL

Ⅰ.ⅰ.  _ (My flat smelled suspiciously of burnt toast. I didn’t hear his thoughts.) _

Did I do the right thing last night? Dan looked so restless all night, every time I went to check on him. It didn’t seem like sleep gives him any peace. So why is there nothing I can do, no way to help him? Burnt toast is not enough of a problem solver. All I can do is insignificant, and while well-meaning, unhelpful. Being aware of it like this stings. The bee of powerlessness, my wanna-be-Disney-prince companion, has now found her beehive. I cannot overcome it with kindness. But then, what weapons do I have? Also. Was that a groan I just heard? Is Dan awake? I should go check on him. He is probably in pain. Will it wake him up if I knock, in case he is sleeping? It might. But I can’t just enter. That is his room, already disregarding that this is his flat. I don’t like the energy of it. It’s a little like a vacuum, but instead of nothing, there is just dryness, and it’s absorbing all liveliness. Knocking. That is what I was going to do. Will he answer? The door isn’t completely closed, but then, I myself am the one who never closed it properly. I can’t regard this small gap as an invitation.

 

ⅱ.  _ “Yes?” _

His voice sounds awful. He looks awful, too. My eyes are tired, and I know it, and my glasses have slipped a little; the room is dark. And yet, his most prominent feature are those hungry eyes and the deep shadows underneath them, so prominent that I can make them out behind all these obstacles. That’s not a happy conclusion, Phil, mind.

 

ⅲ.  _ “Hey. I hope you don’t mind I took a nap on your couch.” _

Oh wow, my voice sounds just brilliant. And I couldn’t have thought of something better to say? But, is that a hint of a smile on Dan’s face? Or is this wishful thinking? I should really stop thinking about thinking because thinking about thinking is in itself a whole task when I have ninety-nine problems already at hand. No, Phil. No memes right now. Think about Dan. Don’t analyse. Don’t try to make him the character of a story, don’t try to make yourself the hero. Life is not always a reasonable storyline.

 

ⅳ.  _ “No.” _

His voice is croaky. Hoarse may be a more appropriate words. Where has the decision not to care about words gone already? I know he is practically the same height as me, I know he is, although probably a little younger, practically my equal. Do I know? I just need to remember. He looks so small in the covers. I just want to make sure he is safe from the terrors that are plaguing him, from what I can tell. But already that I feel I need to justify this to myself makes it a doomed feeling, now? I can think about feelings. That I can do. I shouldn’t do it while staring at the line of his hair, the curl of single strands, while staring at his eyes that aren’t empty, but also not satisfied. I shouldn’t stare at him at all. Here I am, staring at him. Is he staring back. There was something I had to say. Wasn’t it related to the hunger? Oh, the soup. The pot resting on the stovetop, cold and almost forgotten by now if it weren’t for the scent of burnt bread wafting into my nostrils. It is strange how choked I feel all of a sudden.

 

ⅴ.  _ “Um. I made soup before I went to sleep, I can reheat it?” _

There’s nothing weird about suddenly speaking up, is there? And nothing weird about my sentence except for the excusably improvable grammar?

 

ⅵ.  _ “Y-” (Nodding would have to do.) _

Oh, he’s not fine, not fine at all, and all you think about is his face! Speaking must be torture to him. That’s a nod, right? That means he was trying to say yes. He’d better not say anything else if he doesn’t want to set his throat on fire. Although then he could be a dragon. Argh.

 

ⅶ.  _ “Okay, okay, good.” _

The smile comes unconsciously - was it too much? It was too much. Here he is, sick in bed, and I smile at him like everything is sunshine daisies butterflies. This is why people dislike me. When will kindness be enough? I should leave. I should go reheat the soup. He might want to get up in private. Feet are weird things sometimes, and limbs. At least that gives me something to focus on. Walk to the kitchen. Push the pot back on the stove. Turn it on. Wait. The bathroom door in the background. Stir. Stir. Procure a plate, or two. Am I hungry? I am hungry. Can I eat? This is technically my bread. I hope Dan won’t mind. The toilet being flushed. Two plates. Footsteps in the kitchen. This not thinking isn’t working out terribly well, is it? Then again, someone had yet to succeed in making coherent sentences out of nothing. The chair creaks. Maybe this is the moment to turn around. It sounds like a reasonable idea. I can’t wipe the smile off my face. Can I be myself here or is he going to crush me? Since when do I care if people are displeased with my happiness? What he is likely to be more displeased with than my happiness is the food I made. I need to warn him.

 

ⅷ.  _ “The soup isn’t much, I’m afraid. I’m terrible at cooking, and honestly surprised I haven’t burned down the entire building yet. But yeah, it’s basically just vegetable broth, and then I toasted some of my bread that was too old to eat by itself and made cubes out of it so now you have croutons à la Phil.” _

Rambling. The affliction of the socially awkward with too many words at the back of their tongues.

 

ⅸ.  _ “Phil. Phil, don’t you dare apologize for making me food that I know you got from your own flat, just accept that you’re a goddamn angel.” _

He sounds dreadful, but his words don’t. He has such a hard shell. It’s a cliché, hard shell, soft core. I’m sure there’s more to him. But the hard shell is there. Every time he cracks it, how he reprimands himself- Ouch. Not all thoughts need to be finished. Remember. Stop the storylines. This is not my story. It’s life. In this universe, I am not enough. I am not an angel. I didn’t even immediately think to give him water! It took me at least five seconds to even grab a glass! Not an angel. Not perfect. Cracked. Not enough. And not enough time for mantras. Kindness will fix it. Kindness is my only weapon. I feel like I’ve already been at this point once today. I need to go back to the matters at hand. Do we eat here or in the living room? The space is cramped here, and there is only one chair; but Dan might not want to move again. He hasn’t heard me. Or has he? Do I say it again, or is he just thinking? I should look at him.

 

ⅹ.  _ (Shit, which question had I missed?) - “I asked if you wanted to eat here or in the living room.” _

Just keep smiling, Phil. Just keep smiling. It might still be enough one day.

 

ⅺ.  _ “Living room. More space. You need to sit, too.” _

Oh. He thought of me. Maybe I haven’t gone too far after all. Maybe he also feels like I have hijacked his flat. Maybe it would be a little dramatic to just burst out with this question, despite my overwhelming need to communicate. I need to go. No, he needs to go first. He held that glass, adorably, with two hands. He is not carrying anything except himself over there.

 

ⅻ.  _ “You go ahead, then. No offense, but I don’t trust you with anything that can break right now.” _

I just won’t look at him. That is the best idea I’ve had today. To be fair, I woke up like an hour ago. After falling asleep like three hours ago. It is beside the point. I just won’t look at him. This is hard to do anyways. But concentrating on the soup doesn’t mean I’m not hyper-aware of his presence, of his moving behind me. I have two plates. Now, please don’t spill. Please don’t spill. Made it! I actually made it to the table without a single drop of food landing on the carpet or on my dishevelled clothing. Ha! Oh no, his smile is beautiful. It’s so warm and so rare that it looks so earnest and pure. I want all museums of the world filled with Dan’s smile. Although a picture wouldn’t do it justice, and neither would a painting or some incomprehensible abstract modern art that I would probably never get, and hanging the real deal would just plain be morbid. Where was I going with this? Oh, the smile. No, wait, sitting down is good. A good idea. Just like eating. Generally moving would be nice. Not as suspicious as gaping at Dan and smiling like an idiot. The soup is not that bad. That’s just the hunger talking, probably, but at least it’s edible. No-one is going to die of food poisoning. Can you die of food poisoning or is it just really, really unpleasant? This silence, however, is rather pleasant. I can’t make a fool of myself if I am not talking to begin with. There’s a fault somewhere in this deduction, but oh well, I was never good at science. Or is this philosophy? I like to think I am everything a philosopher despises. Dan, though. Dan has that look about him, this look like he has all the questions of the world hidden in his chest, behind his eyes. Maybe that is what makes him so intriguing. He also looks like he hides them because the answers he expects aren’t really ones he wants to here. I am over-interpreting this, aren’t I? It’s a good thing eating works on auto-pilot. I wonder if one day, he’ll dare ask the questions tearing him apart when he’s with me. I wonder if one day, I’ll dare ask mine. Although mostly, they are just ridiculous. At least my readers like them. The internet has all sorts of odd people. My plate is empty.

 

ⅻⅰ.  _ “It was really good, Phil. Thank you. You didn’t have to do this.” _

I guess not.

 

ⅹⅳ.  _ “I wanted to.” _

Because that is the truth. Is he really trying to collect the plates when he looks like this, when a soft summer breeze might sweep him away like the petals of a dandelion? He is. I’m faster. Obviously I’m faster. I’m at my full strength, which admittedly isn’t a lot of strength, but enough to clear the table after dinner- no, this is breakfast. A breakfast of soup. Classic. Normally I am more the type for a dinner of cereal, but exceptions are always to be made. Is he pouting? Oh no, he is. How am I supposed to survive Dan Howell? Humour. My laugh sounds weird in this dreary flat. My laugh sounds weird in general. Disappearing to the kitchen is the perfect solution for this problem. I have plates to get rid of, please excuse me. I also have thoughts to get rid of, thoughts I can’t get rid of. Does Dan want to talk? Where is Dan? Oh, the couch. That can’t possibly be a comfortable position. Then again, the couch can hardly be comfortable at all. He doesn’t look uncomfortable. Only a little like death, still. Not like he’s about to die anymore, luckily. There’s not really something else I can do. He must want me to leave now. He never wanted me to come in in the first place.

 

ⅹⅴ.  _ “Feeling better? You know, if you want to talk, we can, but I can also leave if you want me to, I know I forced my way in yesterday because I was genuinely afraid you’d die and it’d be my fault if I listened to you and then just walked away, but if you’re still not comfortable with me being here I can leave you alone. It’s up to you.” _

There’s a battle in this boy’s eyes. I can see it, read it like an open book, or an open web page because that is where books are free, online, and already a battle is enough to fan the spark of hope my heart will probably never let go, as long as it is beating. Which roughly translates to as long as I am alive. The battle looks violent. Dan’s hands formed fists at his sides when I wasn’t looking. It’s probably not intentional. His facial expression is blank. He looks so lost. I have no idea what he is going to say, but already I know that he must have more than just the one option of kicking me out of his flat and out of his life. I shouldn’t be so happy about this. 

 

ⅹⅵ.  _ “Please. Stay.” _

What am I supposed to focus on? What do I focus on when he just said that but is also practically dying again, coughing his lungs up, probably not breathing anymore? What do I do? Is he still here? Will he react if I- I am touching his cheek. Sometimes my hand is a little faster than my mind. My mind also likes running in circles, which my hand is obviously incapable of since it has no legs. Neither does my mind. Forget the bad analogy, Phil. Focus on Dan. Oh, his cheek is so warm. My hand is perpetually cold, yes, but he’s still burning up. Not healthy at all. With his eyes closed, I’m genuinely afraid that he’s going to pass out. Is he going to pass out? He must be near unconsciousness if he is actually leaning into my hand. His eyes are red. He takes so painstakingly long to open them, it’s like he just came back from some place very, very far away. Or maybe he just had a coughing fit. It’s the option that’s less supernatural and also far more likely, sadly. I should get him another glass of water, now that he’s not actively in danger of dying anymore. His throat must be positively on fire. I can’t leave him alone like this, can I? No. I have too much of a conscience. Right? Is this having a conscience or is it just plain being nosy about people I don’t even know? Like, I have no clue how old Dan even is. He looks young from here. Very young indeed. And what is his favourite colour? Judging by the flat, I can only guess at his favourite colour being the absence of it. Watching the fight behind his eyes is painful, but he drinks the water, so that’s a win, right? It’s not a win that he won’t look at me now. I want him to look at me. I want his eyes to tell me the right thing to do. How much do I care though, about what Dan tells me he wants, when obviously he can’t quite be left alone, and I have nothing to do except maybe some Oxin to write? I need to stay.

 

ⅹⅶ.  _ “I’ll stay.” _

Nobody likes feeling like they’re being pitied, and no young adult wants to be treated like a child, but he looks so vulnerable. I can’t help this voice. It sounds like I’m talking to a lost puppy. Help. I don’t know what this is I’m getting into, which means every centimetre I advance might be a centimetre too far.

 

ⅹⅷ.  _ “Thank you.” _

Not this one. His voice. Awful. He’s going to cry. He looks like he feels the need to be strong all the time, like he won’t let himself cry, won’t let himself meet my eyes, won’t let himself be weak. I’ve always been weak. But Dan, Dan is strong. The problem is that the longer he pushes himself to be stronger than humanly possible, to manage on his own more than anyone can manage on their own, the more he’s going to break apart. Harmful masculinity in society, and the fact that twelve-year-olds think they need to be adults right now, is really creating a country of broken minds. Are these thoughts I should be having in this silence? Do I really need to challenge society right now? And have I declared myself Dan’s therapist? No. I’m just going too far trying to be kind again. Maybe we should do something fun. Or light-hearted. I swear I saw Mario Kart somewhere around here last night. 

 

ⅹⅸ.  _ “Do you want to play some Mario Kart? I saw you had the game, and I thought doing something fun would-” _

Dan startles, but the apathy immediately vanishes from his posture. He won’t let me complete my justification. Good.

 

ⅹⅹ.  _ “Yes. I’d like to.” _

Oh, even better. He’s not smiling yet, not quite, but at least he’s not avoiding my eyes anymore. Helpful. Does he want me to set up again? Wait, no, that doesn’t matter, I’m doing it, because he’s not moving on my watch. How does this- oh. Here. Okay. This. Got it. He must’ve gotten this from his parents. What is his family like? Not a question to ask yet, probably. I need to stop being so curious. Maybe one day he is going to trust me. Or maybe he is going to go back to regarding me with disdain, like most people do, when he’s back in his right mind and this fever is over. I cannot be glad for someone being ill, but I might just be a little bit. Not such a good person after all. I, at least, have always known. And yet, people peg me as too nice… How does this controller- oh. This way. What course should we do? This one, maybe. I like the water. It’s calming. Right, this one. Dan is really good at Mario Kart. Really good. Much better than I am. Is he smiling now? He is. Maybe losing, even if spectacularly, is worth this smile. And this one. This is so easy. Not the course. Oh, mean! I’m in fifth, I don’t deserve getting hit with red shells. Dan is still quiet. I shouldn’t be this surprised that he’s quiet when getting hit with a blue shell. I shouldn’t have made assumptions about him at all. And the blue shell doesn’t even matter. He’s still winning. He’ll keep winning…. I mean, of course I will lose. I have… two left thumbs? Is it that, or is it two right ones? Is this actually light banter we are having? Is that possible with Dan? It is, and that’s going to make it harder when he decides I am too obnoxious for him the moment he’s able to speak properly again. I also shouldn’t assume that about him. I shouldn’t assume at all. Remember. I need to remember this. Oh, I also need to remember that staying on the track might be a good idea. Can I just- Yes- Focus- Oh, rude! Always those red shells! The track has enough obstacles for me already. And he’s winning. Again. Again. He looks so happy. I mean, I could pretend I’m letting him win, but why would I? Dan’s not a small child, and he’s winning fair and square. Wait, this is the last round. Am I in third? I am in third! Wow, when did that happen? There’s only one between me and Dan now! This is so cool! Maybe I’m not that bad at this, after all. Hey, don’t- Oh, Dan. This might be karma, but I do feel like laughing at me doesn’t warrant a full-on coughing fit.

 

ⅹⅺ.  _ (...which morphed into a coughing fit at lightning speed and threw me off the track…. Phil did cheer afterwards, but only when he had ensured I wasn’t dying of asphyxiation next to him.) _

Is he okay? Oh, I’m in first now! But is Dan okay? At least he has stopped coughing now. His face is bright red. And I win! He’s still second, but I just won! Am I allowed to be happy about this yet? He seems okay, as okay as it gets. Well, if he insists on choosing the next track, he’s definitely okay. I can cheer, then. Oh, I love this track. It always makes me hungry, but I love it. It’s no secret that food holds a very special place in my heart. Especially the sweets that this beautiful universe is covered in. I wish I could live there. I wouldn’t want to live in those lava-ridden tracks, or anywhere with weirdly round dogs on chains- although that is debatable. Maybe they could be tamed? But nevertheless, the only track I would really be delighted to live in would be this landscape of sweets. Cockaigne. Is it? A bizarre word, that. Probably Greek or something. I love bizarre words. And ice cream.

**Those ice cream cones are gigantic. I could base my mountains off of them. But no, not all of the scenes can be happy. They need to be grey. Grey ice cream cones. Not half as appealing as this track.**

 

ⅹⅻ.  _ (The thoughts broke off.) _

Everything in Dan’s flat is grey, even if it’s bright green or purple, it’s grey. It looks grey. And I know I am not colourblind. Except for Dan. Dan isn’t grey. Which colour is he, though? I can’t figure it out. It is like he’s a swirl of them. I should really focus on playing this game more. My hands aren’t doing well on their own, without my brain’s help. It’s hard, with this boy next to me; he is appealing, beautiful, but in almost a sad way. I can’t- He defies all of my black and white descriptions. He defies all the simplicity that I want in Kingdom of Oxin. The world is full of grey areas. So maybe Dan is grey, a grey area. But he’s certainly a different kind of grey from his flat. His flat’s grey is the absence of colour; Dan’s grey is the simultaneous presence of all of them. No. Stop. I can’t think about him this way. I don’t deserve romance. And if I keep thinking about him in a romantic way, and being far too curious about him, wanting to figure him out, I don’t even deserve him as a friend. This track is beautiful. I’m going to actively focus on this track now. Except that won’t work, because now I’m actively focusing on actively focusing. This spiral is the reason teachers never liked me in school. And maybe that I used to doodle all over exam papers, and write down the most stupid answers. It’s no use, my mum telling me it’s because I’m special, I’m creative. Special, in this world, is rarely a good thing, and creativity so often gets trampled on. Kindness doesn’t make you happy. And I have bumped into the cake. Where did that from? Also, I’m hungry again now. I wish I had that

**Cake.**

Just about now. It might also make Dan happy. Wouldn’t that be nice? Having some cake? Dan’s in first again. I don’t even know if he likes cake. Those people that don’t like cake exist somewhere. They’re just another thing about the world I will never be able to wrap my head around. Did I really just poke him in the side? Oh, Phil. It’s really been too long since I had a friend. Kindergarten was when I peaked at having friends. The problem in school is, if you’re a reject, you’re with the rejects; and most of the time, they’re interesting people, they have good music tastes and they have a dislike of the mainstream that makes it seem like- Oh, shell. Yes! Finally. Next track? This one. They seem- They seem like they might become friends. But often, they don’t tolerate kindness, either. They don’t tolerate a lack of anger at the popular kids; and they can be shut-ins, they don’t want to hang out most of the time. People are so complicated. Everything is always grey. Why is it that Dan is more intriguing to me than anyone I’ve met in years, and why is it that all I want to do is hug him and protect him? I need to stop this train of thought. No, Phil. You don’t get to have that. You don’t get to have that with anyone. Certainly not with Dan. I’m hungry. I should eat some more. And Dan is so quiet. He probably wants some more sleep. And it wouldn’t hurt him to have some more hot soup, either.

 

ⅹⅹⅲ.  _ (It was either tact or really good timing that Phil suggested we have some more food and then a bit of quiet time, as he put it, barely a minute later.) _

Should I let him set the table? He looks like he is going to fall asleep right here, right now, but he seems determined, and who am I to not let him? I’m not his mum. He probably doesn’t even consider me his friend. I should just focus on reheating the soup. Or broth, rather. Maybe I can make something more substantial later for us. Phil. Remember. I should stop addressing myself in third person in my head, I really should. Oh, it’s going to boil over! Saved, luckily. Is Dan already at the table? I can carry the pot to the living room now. It’s not super heavy anymore, even to my weak arms. This silence is comfortable. Dan is adorable, in the way he has to constantly push himself to sit upright again. Phil. Ah. There are so many things I should stop doing about this. The bread isn’t as crisp as it was anymore, but Dan doesn’t seem to mind. Good. I doubt that he tastes anything right now. At least he’s putting something into his body. That’s important. Right? He’s so skinny, too. His collarbones are jutting out. Is this a recent growth spurt, just his body in the way it is, or doesn’t he eat enough? It’s none of my business. I know. I’ll take these plates. They’re empty now, but he’ll probably still drop them and himself along with them on the way to the kitchen. Where did he- Oh, sofa. Is he already asleep? He still doesn’t look peaceful. I wish he looked peaceful in his sleep, instead of impossibly young and troubled and like the world doesn’t ever leave him alone. He’s also impossibly folded with his long, gangly limbs that I know just too well - well, not his, my own, from tripping over them, but they’re the same length - does that mean he wants me to sit down? To stay? I can. I don’t have many things to do or many other friends to hang out with, I don’t have the shelter today, so not even any animals to hang out with. So. I can. I’ll just get my laptop and do some work on Kingdom of Oxin. Or not my laptop. Maybe I can get my notebook instead? Yes. I’ll just go get my notebook. Should I tell Dan? No, I won’t wake him up just to tell him I’ll be back in thirty seconds. I’ll just sneak out, and be back hopefully before he even realizes.

 

ⅹⅹⅳ.  _ (I didn’t hear any of the thoughts, the decisions he made that lead him to leaving like this, without even seeing if I was awake despite my closed eyes, without even saying good bye.) _

It’s cold in this hallway. It was cold in Dan’s flat, considering it’s the middle of summer, but it’s colder here. My flat is warm. Remotely, at least. Where did I- Right next to my bed, probably. Where it always is. Take it, take it, get back to Dan- I should get a pen, too. Where are they? Kitchen. Right. Where they always are. Not sleeping must have taken a toll on me. Grab a pen, and a second one, because they always run out, and a pencil. Eraser? No, it will take too long to look for it, and what if Dan isn’t asleep, what if he’s asking himself why I just took off? Why would he? But he might. I don’t even know him. I don’t even know anything about him except for a lot of assumptions and a lot of analysis with no base except vague feelings and a little too much staring at his face. Writers. Can I call myself that? Beside the point. Oh, good thing I left the door open without thinking about it. It’s so quiet in here. Writers, always imposing storylines and interpretations on everything. Maybe the world means so much less than I think. It seems like he’s still asleep. Asleep, breathing calmly, but tense. Just sit down, Phil. Take the notebook and at least try to be productive for a while. So. Oxin. Where did I even leave off? Can I tell Dan about this? Or will he just laugh at me? Nobody knows that I am doing this. This is the only thing in my life that is properly mine. That, and me liking to find beauty in people, not genders. But I’ve been called a f-g, basically all my life. I hate this word. I don’t even want to think it. So that’s not, although a misassumption on middle school bully’s parts, so much mine as Kingdom of Oxin. It’s been begging to get out, though. I feel like I want to tell Dan. Scary. For now, he’s sleeping next to me, and I should get to writing.

They broke through the forest, pushing branches aside and trying not to poke themselves on the countless thorns that this forest is packed with. With all the millions of shades of pink, it looked a lot nicer than it felt. The trees stood closer and closer, and paying attention to their clothing or their skin became too much of a hassle. Their wings, they still had to protect, but that became about all when the pink was a dark shade around them and golden rays of sunlight didn’t break through the leaves anymore.

“We’re close,” Tabitha said. “We must be close, with how difficult this is getting. The forest can’t be making us work for nothing, can it?” Is this good? It’s certainly the opposite of how the real word works.

Eliza only hummed in agreement, three feet behind, and slightly out of breath. Tabitha didn’t turn around to look at her, because every second she didn’t spend looking ahead increased the possibility that she was going to impale himself with a thorn, or three. In fact, she was so focused on breaking through the thicket that she barely noticed when all of a sudden, there were no thorns anymore. Instead, the trees stood further apart again, not gradually, just all of a sudden. She was so focused on not hurting herself that she almost fell of a suddenly ending branch. Eliza had to grab her hand from behind. In front of them sat a pack of the most majestic creatures either of them had ever seen.

**Communicating with the flyons turned out to be difficult, just like they’d expected; this wasn’t because of their inherently scary stance though, not even because of any possible language barriers. It was simply difficult because the flyons would not stop laughing at them. They were quite arrogant, really, and maybe they had reason to be. Their fur was soft, their wings were actually useful and their forest was luscious with never-changing conditions of a gentle breeze and soothingly mild temperatures for the fairies’ sun-burnt skin. Still, their beauty, their elegance and their perfect home didn’t make them better than the fairies.**

**Eliza and Tabitha had messy hair and bright red faces. It was rather likely that leaves in several different colours were stuck to their clothing, which was torn in some places, and dirty in others. They had been travelling for a while, and the water was so scarce it only prevented them from dying of thirst.**

**Eliza took to sulking. Tabitha crossed her arms in front of her chest.**

**“We need to get to the mountains, and we need your help! Now, could you at least just say no instead of being arrogant, self-righteous-” This is good. Cats are evil.**

**Thunder rolled over the forest. The trees made way for wind, bending under an invisible force. The flyons stopped laughing immediately. Suddenly, the leader of the group shrieked as he was lifted up in the air by - HANDS? GIANT HANDS? GIANT HANDS FLOATING IN THE AIR?**

**Do I need to explain those are humans or not? It’s cooler this way, if people have to think about it, but I like the idea that cats really live in two worlds and they’re those majestic creatures in one a lot, so everyone should know. An author’s note? No.**

**“Humans,” the group gasped. “They’ve come to play.”**

**Whatever play was, it sounded terrifying to the two fairies. They watched in horror as the hands, labelled humans, started petting the flyons, grabbing more of them. More and more hands appeared.**

**I want a dog. But they’re not allowed here, and I can’t afford living anywhere else. I might not even be able to afford living here for much longer. Why does money have to be such an issue in this world. Why can’t we all just do what we’re happy with, and that’s enough? Dogs are also expensive. I don’t want to be thinking about how expensive dogs are, I want to be thinking about how cute they are. The shelter will have to do for a while, at least until-**

 

ⅹⅹⅴ.  _ (The thoughts cut off. No.) _

Dan’s phone vibrates. It must be Dan’s, because mine is in my flat, in my bag. I haven’t checked it in a while. There are three people that could have messaged me, and my mum, my dad, and my brother can all wait. They probably worry more about me when I message back immediately. He wakes up quickly, so quickly that it makes me wonder if he looks so tense constantly because he’s a really light sleeper. Oh. He’s looking at me with those questioning eyes. He’s just searching for his phone, I know. The smile is automatic, but earnest. He looks away immediately. What happened to him that he can’t bear being smiled at? His phone’s down there. Ah, found it. It’s a text. I can’t read from here. I also shouldn’t even try to read his private text messages. Bad etiquette, that. Only now he looks like he’s just gotten the news that his hamster died. What happened? What is making him slide to the floor, right of the couch, where he already was in a slumped position before the text? It can’t be comfortable, pressing his face into the carpet. He looks small. Long, but small. He looks like he needs so much more than anyone can give to him. This is going to far. Ignoring this isn’t respecting his privacy anymore, ignoring this is not kind anymore. I need to check on him, no matter how much he doesn’t want me to. He wanted me to stay, right? He said that. He croaked that out, but he said that.

 

ⅹⅹⅵ.  _ “Dan?” _

He doesn’t budge just a centimetre. My notebook in my hand feels out of place.

 

ⅹⅹⅶ.  _ “Mmm.” _

Still on the floor. If he’s saying any discernible words, they are inscrutable, muffled into the carpet. The entirety of Dan is inscrutable. I need to get closer. Everything question could be a question too much. I know how to deal with scared, abandoned animals. Dealing with Dan is basically the same. But it feels harder. Humans are more easily begrudging. With the shelter animals, I know I’ll always get a second shot. I can’t know with Dan.

 

ⅹⅹⅷ.  _ “Why are you on the floor?” _

That’s a sensible question, right?

 

ⅹⅹⅸ.  _ “I lost my job.” _

What did he just say? He said something. Those were words. Words I can’t understand when he’s speaking into the disgusting, ugly carpet.

 

ⅹⅹⅹ.  _ “What?” _

The closer I get, the more dangerous it gets. The closer I get, the faster I might be able to catch him. How ridiculous. That could’ve been a line from a cheesy romantic movie. For not liking cheese, I like those a little too much.

 

ⅹⅹⅺ.  _ “I lost my job…. Jesus.” _

Oh. His eyes. What were the words he just said? I understood them, this time, technically, but practically I’m too busy realising just how close I got to him. Too close, probably. Oh. He’s lost his job. I need to move away. I need to apologize for invading his personal space like that, and I need to react to the actual words he said.

 

ⅹⅹⅻ.  _ “Sorry. That sucks, losing your job.” _

What else am I supposed to say? The words feel shallow, feel like they’re not enough. It’s like when you’re craving a good coffee and instant get the instant brew that they sell at road stations. Right? Yes. Appropriate comparison. Should I stop staring at him? Yes. But he’s also staring at me. He’s staring at me. What do I do? Oh, his eyes. Nevermind, I don’t actively do anything. I’ll just stay like this, gazing, appreciating all the hidden mystery just behind the brown curtains. If I stare long enough, maybe I can delve into them. Knowing me and my sense of orientation, I’ll definitely get lost. Maybe I already am lost. It is definitely not a good idea to keep staring. Dan. Then why am I doing this? Dan. Dan. Why? Dan. Dan. Dan. My thoughts are disintegrating, slipping from me, and now I am thinking about my thoughts again, thinking about thinking about thinking about- stop. Dan. Think about Dan instead. Or no, don’t. That’s creepy. How long has it been? Minutes? Seconds? I can even hear cars going by in the street in this silence, this absence of noise. Am I breathing? Yes, good. Shallowly, but yes. Is Dan? I can only hope so. Here comes the basilisk again, turning us both to stone. Maybe Dan is secretly a basilisk. Which, in the original legends, would make him a chicken I guess. That’s a mental image I never knew I needed. Dan as a chicken. Whose eyes turn me to stone. I’m already not quite capable of moving as it is. His mouth. Why am I looking at his mouth now? Oh, because he is moving it. It’s also a nice mouth. Wait, those are words.

 

ⅹⅹⅹⅲ.  _ “I have something very absurd to say.” _

What? I’m genuinely the person with the most absurd thoughts. Should I tell him? Oh, coughing. I won’t get the chance, then. It’s better to keep my absurd thoughts to myself anyways, and I know that. Eleven-year-old Phil knew. I’m twenty-two, and I should be well-aware. My thoughts aren’t generally what people above the age of three want to hear. I should get him a glass of water instead of sitting here like a useless stone sculpture. Still breathing? I am. Dan is quite obviously having trouble. Which is why I need to get him a glass of water. Only going to the kitchen. I’ll be back in a second. Right? Oh, he’s finished. Good. This half-smile might just be the biggest one he permits himself. In a way, it’s sad. I’m also honoured he’s giving it to me for a task as simple as passing him a glass of water. With all the coughing and the subsequent water, he’s at the very least going to be well hydrated. Unlike me. But I can’t get up and get myself a glass of water now, can I? Not when he was just trying to tell me something. I can’t fathom what that could possibly be, what inscrutable Dan wants to tell his neighbour, this stranger in his flat, right now.

 

ⅹⅹⅹⅳ.  _ “Sorry.” _

Why is it he always apologizes? I know that feeling. It’s unpleasant. No. It’s awful. I desperately want to reassure him and I have no clue how. This is what I get for getting emotionally invested into the well-being of someone I barely know, someone who likely isn’t fine, isn’t fine at all. There’s still the flat thing that’s an absolute mystery to me. But for now, I want to clear up the one mystery he was going to solve before that coughing fit. His voice is still impossibly painful just to hear.

 

ⅹⅹⅹⅴ.  _ “It’s okay. What’s the absurd thing, then? Only if you feel like you can speak. Do you want more water?” _

Determination fills his eyes, suddenly. I’m pretty sure it’s desperation. Focus on his words this time when he speaks Phil, not on his mouth. Yes, it is a nice mouth. But that is so beside the point that if the point is here, Dan’s nice mouth is somewhere in the close vicinity of New Zealand. Or maybe the other way around, because Dan’s mouth is quite obviously here. I’m staring at it and well too aware.

 

ⅹⅹⅹⅵ.  _ “No, thank you. Look, we’re both poor, I can’t afford my rent, you can’t afford yours, let’s split and share one flat, I know it’s a bad idea, I’ll sleep on the couch, I’ll…” _

Wait, what? He sounds so desperate and young and scared, it almost scares me how scared he sounds, like I am going to do something to him for this suggestion- I should be thinking about the suggestion. This suggestion that hadn’t occurred to me, and wouldn’t have, either, but now he’s just said it, and it’s so obvious? I’ve always wanted a roommate. And if he’s suggesting this, maybe he doesn’t hate me, and doesn’t want me to hate him anymore? It’s obviously pragmatic, but maybe he’s also fine with us being friends? It’s against all odds and it’s wrong, considering our rocky history of like literally two days, but I want to be his friend, I really do. Why? Oh, I still haven’t said anything. What am I supposed to reply to this? And what do I want to reply? And what do I say to make him less insecure? And what does my face look like right now?

 

ⅹⅹⅹⅶ.  _ “Obviously I’ll pay for your stuff. My things are mostly broken or just plain shitty but- I have a functioning laptop, it’s old but you can use it until I fixed yours, and I have lightbulbs, and…” _

He needs to stop talking before he starts coughing again. I need to stop him before that happens. He is going to end up in hospital at one point today if I don’t. Besides, I know it’s foolish, but I want a roommate, I want to help Dan, and he’s painfully right. It doesn’t feel like giving up, us helping each other. I’ve lived alone for years. And with Dan, there won’t be a lack of quiet time. Right? There’ll be quiet time, but also Mario Kart, and also watching movies together, and all that’s so tedious alone. And he’s promising to fix things. I want to believe in the good in him. He’s a swirl of all the colours, but there are more bright colours in the world than dark ones. Not that dark colours are inherently bad. I need to stop him now.

 

ⅹⅹⅹⅷ.  _ “Dan, calm down. Don’t work yourself up in this state. I think it’s a good idea, I’m broke, you’re broke, there needs to be more three am Mario Kart and I know you won’t break any more of my stuff, I know you must have had a reason. No reason to freak out. I don’t think you’re a freak. Come on, let’s write an email to the landlord.” _

That was a little more than I intended to say. I should really stop always moving so fast. Always going all or nothing. This world isn’t Kingdom of Oxin, it’s not my creation. Things aren’t all black and white, all good and evil, all right and wrong. It’s supposed to be beautiful, especially to me. I’m too fickle with labels for black and white. I just wish it could be, and I wish I could earnestly and genuinely wish for it and be happy with it. Is he going to say anything? Oh no, I’ve gone too far now. It’s been a minute, at least. At least it feels like it. It probably hasn’t. My perception of time is warped at the best of times, and with a pretty, broken boy in front of me isn’t the best of times. I’ll just give up on not thinking these thoughts.

 

ⅹⅹⅹⅸ.  _ “Okay.” _

Finally, he’s said something. Is it too hesitant? Am I forcing him into this? I need to double-check, this is too big a decision to make when he’s not fully in his right mind, when he’s desperate and there’s something very wrong with him. Maybe. No assumptions, Phil. But he looks just so broken.

 

ⅹⅼ.  _ “Are you sure? I don’t want you to feel pressured, we barely know each other, I know personal space is important-” _

I need to make sure.

 

ⅹⅼⅰ.  _ “Phil. It was my idea. I suggested this in the first place. You’re the one who gets to decide.” _

Oh, right. He’s interrupted me to say this. He must mean it, right? And it’s true, he did suggest it.

 

ⅹⅼⅱ.  _ “Oh. Right.” _

I still don’t want to be making this decision. But he’s strong, and I’m weak, and I want this, and he’d be speaking up if he wasn’t comfortable, right? He’s his own person, he’s a legal adult, hopefully, I still don’t know how old he is, but if he’s going to university and living alone he must be, but he looks so terrified. Is he terrified of me or of his suggestion? Or are his hands shaking because he’s ill and cold? I wish I could read his mind. I wish I could know. He looks still younger like this, and like another part of him might be on the verge of breaking. I don’t want to be responsible for that. I don’t want to hurt him. I don’t want  anything to hurt him. Which is just ridiculous considering the amount of time I know him, and how much of the time I knew of his existence he’s spent blasting emo music at full volume despite the walls between our flats being really, really thin. I still can’t dislike him. And while I try to be nice and kind to everyone, because I can’t know what battle they’re fighting, right, it does happen that I dislike someone. So why can’t I dislike Dan? Why can’t I not care about this random boy that doesn’t seem so random at all?

 

ⅹⅼⅲ.  _ “Listen, Phil, I can’t hear your thoughts if they involve me, please give me a heads-up on what’s going on in this brain of yours.” _

Oh, right. Again. Maybe I should inform him of my thought process. But maybe he wouldn’t like to know these vaguely inappropriate thoughts I am having about him. I hate lying, I can’t lie, but I’m already blushing anyways, and it’s decided I’m taking him into my flat. I can’t bear the grey of this one. How do I- Oh, this is a thing I can tell him I was thinking about. Do I have to feel guilty if I am just protecting the both of us from a massive amount of awkwardness? If I have to or not, I certainly do feel guilty.

 

ⅹⅼⅳ.  _ “Sorry, sorry, I got sidetracked thinking about how to rearrange my things so that yours would fit, I didn’t mean to worry you. My flat is nicer, probably, but I mean, if you’d rather stay here, we can do that, too.” _

I can’t read his expression. Can he tell I haven’t quite told him the truth?

 

ⅹⅼⅴ.  _ “My flat is a piece of shit. But so am I. Are you sure you are fine with me moving in with you?” _

Am I allowed to smile at that? At the first thing, yes. It’s true. I don’t really agree with the second statement. And it’s a yes, and overwhelming yesyesyesyesyesyes for the question. What is moral integrity and where did mine go? I need to move on from just this overwhelming scream in the back of my head. So loud. And there’s a grumpy landlord to convince of this, after and insecure Dan.

 

ⅹⅼⅵ.  _ “You’re not a piece of shit. And I’m writing that email now, before we worry about each other’s well-being for another hour. We’ll figure it out along the way. I’ve always wanted a roommate!” _

Genuinely. Maybe this time, kindness will be enough eventually.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> would you believe this is more work than writing an actual chapter?  
> thank you so much for all the support!


	12. Twelve

There was a muffled ringing noise piercing my ears. I woke up with my hands already balled into fists, clutching onto the blanket in early morning angry fashion, ready to punch the source of it, which was unmistakably the single-setting alarm clock I had been using since Year Nine, but my searching fingers couldn’t even find the small table beside the couch. Come to think of it, where was the crease somewhere in the close vicinity of my butt that was the reason it took me at least thirty minutes daily to find a comfortable position to sleep in? And why weren’t my feet pressed up right to the armrest? Also, why was this noise so muffled, when I could hear Phil’s soft snoring next to me perfectly fine?

Oh. Oh, fuck. I wasn’t on the couch. I was in still in Phil’s bed. Of course I had fallen asleep to Kingdom of Oxin. I had basically conditioned myself to do so, stupid as I was.

Phil was right next to me, snoring so softly that the noise toed the line between snoring and breathing. I forbid myself to get all hysterical about this. It was embarrassing that I had to remind myself, but it was no secret that I was trash. Phil Trash Number One, apparently. I didn’t dare to turn and look at him, for fear that I was just going to stay and stare at him creepily until he would throw me out. Out of his room, out of this flat that was still mostly his, out of his life. I was quite certain that sleeping Phil would have been a beautiful sight to behold. I was even more certain that I did not deserve in the slightest to be blessed by his angelic features in their purest form. Had I read this line in a novel, I would’ve slammed it shut and looked for the nearest waste paper basket to vomit into. Thinking it myself made me question, yet again, everything about myself. I was used to devastating self-reflection in the ungodly hours of the morning. Ringing. My alarm clock had stopped momentarily, but the sound came back now, louder.

I needed to turn that thing off. Why was it even pestering me? Shit, I needed to get to university! Or not, ha. Right. That had happened. Why did I have to be so slow in mornings, and so clumsy? It was a miracle Phil was still asleep, and, apparently, dreaming about something akin to a very colourful train station and running a little late. Soon, he was going to wake up, too. I struggled to get free. The covers were draped so artfully over me that I couldn’t possibly have done it myself, which in turn meant that Phil had likely tucked me in. I wouldn’t allow myself to dwell on that. My mind was under enough of a strain just to get to the door of the room safely as it was. The blinds weren’t all the way closed, but the light streaming into the room was gloomy and grey. London. As always, it was impossible to tell what time of the day it was just approximately by the sun. Earth was still spinning in its regular orbit around the sun. I was still alive, despite quitting university, despite voluntarily having a neighbour over to play video games, and despite sleeping in a cute boy’s bed. I never would have thought life would get me this far.

I closed the door softly behind me, stumbling on through the pitch-black hallway and tripping over five shoes until I finally reached the living room. I must have even fallen over one single shoe twice. The window here was open, and the floor mostly free from scattered objects and clothing.

I turned the alarm clock off mid-screech and smirked at it, ignoring just how much my knuckles hurt from simply punching it. It was quarter past seven in the morning. What the hell was I doing awake, and why hadn’t I thought to turn the bloody alarm clock off to start with? It wasn’t like I intended on attending the mock exam that had been scheduled for eight-thirty a.m. on this very fine November day. I yawned, and decided to make myself a cup of tea. I was goddamn British, after all.

Phil had caught his dream-train on dream-time. The incessant ringing had vanished from his subconscious as well as from my sadly very awake consciousness, which left him to make pleasant conversation with the guard. It sounded a lot like the language from the Sims. I did my best to tune it out.

Checking my phone was admittedly not my finest idea. My professor had emailed me regarding my absence of the day before. The tone of it didn’t boost my self-confidence, to put it kindly.

Dropping out of university wasn’t as easy as just saying so. They never showed in movies how the process actually worked. I did what any reasonable adult would have done in my place. I typed my query into google, juggling my phone and my hot cup of tea as I attempted to get into a somewhat cosy position. The living room seemed cold and desolate after having to leave the warm, soft bed that coincidentally also came with a person I very much enjoyed sleeping next to. I shouldn’t particularly enjoy that. The decision to withdraw from the bed had definitely been a good idea, even though it made me feel a little bit like shit.

The decision to withdraw from my course at university, as the search results put it, felt terrific, and was probably a terrible idea. It was too early for witty word games. The neighbours downstairs were having pre-work sex. It took me twenty minutes to craft a short apologetic email to my awful, awful professor, and another twenty to craft another short, less apologetic email to my Faculty Student Support Officer. Because apparently I couldn’t just craft a slightly longer email and be done with it, no, I had to make an appointment to discuss my obviously rash and adolescent decision. I wouldn’t falter. If I ever did go back to university, I would still rather kill myself than enrol in law once again. To some people, this might have seemed slightly dramatic, but I would rather kill myself than do a fair number of things.

Pressing send for the second time, I had drunk only half my cup of tea and the room threatened to suffocate me if I didn’t leave any time soon. Phil, by now, was only dreaming in colours which resulted in very audible but also very incomprehensible thoughts with the odd dog in between. I needed to get out. I doubted that I could even see as many shades of colours in real life as Phil was currently dreaming about.

I had the entire week off for mock exams, but Louise, ever the mother, would probably never quit worrying about me, which was largely due to me always seeking refuge at the Sprinkle of Glitter bakery after university, and thus in a state of considerable emotional distress. She had told me fifteen times how much Darcy was delighted by my company. She’d overdone it, really; her excuses for needing me were past the point of believable, especially since she had already hired me. I did appreciate the effort not to make it seem like I was the one who was incapable of asking for help, I really did. I might I have known I was, but not making it obvious refrained from putting salts into wounds that had never closed and would probably never do so, either. I was delicate, and fragile, and my shell was more porous than I had intended to build it.

And then there was the entire deal where if I stayed in the flat for just a little while longer, I might just give in to the temptation of sneaking back into bed, into Phil’s bed, and of looking at him while he was asleep, of shamelessly drawing energy from my human solace as if he didn’t have feelings of his own. I was already using Phil enough. At least this month, I would be capable of paying my share of the rent, and next month, I might even pay Phil back for the part of October I had spent on this couch. If things went really well. But this was about more than just financial dependence. This felt like falling, like placing myself on a bridge that was only tied to the edge on one side of the gorge when I couldn’t see the bottom, couldn’t know if there was anything down there but sweet-smelling fog that was making it too enticing to fall into my doom. Did I want to fall now? Or did I want to safely cross over to the other side?

All of my mental analogies were messes. I couldn’t even get that right. Then again, how was I supposed to create fitting images for vague concepts I couldn’t get a grasp of in their most literal form? I tidied up precisely one shirt of the seven that were scattered across the room, taking exaggerated care to fold it neatly; then, I put on clothes that were about fifty percent acceptable in the Outside, replacing my pajamas, which were most likely about one percent acceptable, grabbed a hideously colourful beanie that definitely belonged to Phil, but was also the only one in the designated hats-for-horrible-hair-days-spot, and scuffled out of the door.

It was already slightly too late when I realized that Phil’s thoughts hadn’t been the only ones I was ignoring. Shit.

In the hallway, Troye was fiddling with his keys, quite obviously just coming home, and quite obviously seconds from bursting out in tears.

_ This is a depressing flat, I don’t want to be here, I miss my friends, I fucking miss my friends, I need this shot with my music, I really need it, and I hate fucking grindr hook-ups that don’t even offer you food before they kick you out at arse-o’clock in the morning after making you come over in the middle of the night. I’m not even tired but I just want to sleep. Maybe I can call mum instead of just crying a little. I hate timezones, but right now it’s like, afternoon? Maybe they can sometimes be a blessing. Morning here, afternoon there. She’s- _

I cleared my throat. I had intended to do it softly, like Phil would, but instead it was half the way to a full-blown lion’s roar. It definitely got me Troye’s attention, mind. And I had an idea that I needed his attention for. It was quite probably ludicrous, stupid, on the verge of mad. I was on the verge of going mad in more ways than one. My world was spinning faster and faster, firing at me so rapidly that my entire definition of myself was spinning, and slowly slipping away under my fingertips.

“Hey,” I said. How did people go about this? “Good morning?”

“Not so good a morning if you ask me,” Troye shrugged, pointing at his shoulders. His jacket was spattered with rain. This was off to a good start. I laughed a little too abruptly.

“I don’t want to be rude,” I began, and honestly, when did sentences that began this way ever turn out good? I blurted out the rest of my risky statement as if it were hot coals. “You look like you could use some coffee. And, uh, overly sugary pastries. I was going to go to this place, and wondering if you might want to join? Although you’re probably tired, I’m sorry.”

Why couldn’t I ever form entire sentences when attempting to hold a conversation with someone? Possibly that was because I could rarely do so when having a mental conversation with myself. My thought-out sentences tended to get too long, unfortunately, they would just go on and on for hours, until seventeen short sentences in their place would have led to a more favourable result. My ability to juggle big words had impressed teachers into giving me grades good enough for law school, after all. Sadly, this judgement had overlooked my much more prominent ability to lose track of the matter at hand, and my overwhelming ability to be stunned by my own decisions seven seconds after making them.

“Uh, sure? Why not? You’re right, some comfort food sounds sweet.” Troye just barely smiled. He looked tired, but there was a spark in his eyes as well, one that I could never find in mine. Enough creepy analysis done, I opted to lead the way through the rain.

We didn’t speak on the way, but we did sometimes look and smile at each other. It was as supremely weird as most of my life currently; Phil was rubbing off on me. Although he wasn’t doing so in the way I might’ve possibly liked him to, which was a very inappropriate thought indeed to have about one’s best friend, and only friend. Was that part about Phil being my only friend still true? No. I had Louise now, at least, and Darcy. And could I now consider Troye a friend?

Shit, couldn't it just be either yes or no, without all the emotional drama? I wouldn’t allow myself to be an angsty twelve-year-old. I had enough on my plate being an angsty nineteen-year-old. Was it really that important if someone could be considered a friend, or not? Did we always need labels? Maybe I did. Maybe I just did because I never felt secure in anything, not even myself. Maybe gloomy morning weren’t the best time to philosophize.

It was a gloomy morning indeed; wet, and cold, with wind just strong enough for the icy breeze to creep under every last layer of clothing and wind its spindly fingers around soft, fragile bodies. It was early, too; the sun was still rising, still trying to make itself known to the streets. It failed to banish the grey even when at its highest during this time of the year.

Louise hadn’t opened the bakery yet. Only some of the lights were on; the door and windows were firmly shut still, allowing none of the heavenly smell to charm the sidewalk adjacent to them. The pastel purple sign on the glass was flipped to spell out closed. I smiled. This was perfect.

I knocked, unnecessarily; Darcy had already spotted me from her seat at one of the tables. Her obsession with drawing had passed for now; instead, she appeared to have been carefully arranging misplaced bits of shiny and glittery cake decoration. Louise had a way with her daughter. She managed to make the most tedious and time-consuming activities sound like games to Darcy. And Darcy, having inherited all of her mother’s competitive side, loved games.

“Um,” Troye said. Fuck, I had almost forgotten about his actual presence as more than an concept during all of my philosophizing about friendship itself. “Dan? I think they’re closed?”

“Ah,” I said intelligently, while watching Darcy make faces at me through the window, and trying to mentally communicate a lot of things by the way of my eyes, none of which she would understand. Had I thought bringing Troye here all the way through? No. “I’m friends with the owner. Also I work here.”

Troye didn’t get a chance to reply before the door was thrown open and a wave of warm air enveloped us immediately. Darcy stood beaming in front of us, grinning a little too widely even for her standards; she must have snuck out a few more treats than strictly necessary to keep her spirits up when Louise had banished her from the actual high-hygiene baking area. Louise, who was thinking about croissants and baking measurements in such a mathematical way that I tuned her right out, as well as that could possibly work.

“Cold!” she exclaimed without saying hello, jumping in place, rubbing her tiny arms. The front of her shirt was almost completely covered in sequins. “Come in, fast, or Mummy will be angry.”

Who were we to fight her on this statement? We shuffled into the bakery. Troye, still bewildered, but obviously relieved to be inside, hastened to shut the door. Here, there was only warm air all around us, slowly seeping into my body and reawakening it. I had been coming here for weeks now, I had worked so many shifts here that the novelty had worn off and counting them had lost its appeal, and still, I felt cleansed every single time upon entering the shop. The magic wouldn’t subside. I was glad of it. Every time I came back, childlike wonder filled me like it was the first time all over again.

Troye appeared equal parts amazed and dumbfounded; his jaw hang slightly slack, his eyes were sparkling. Darcy cocked her head at Troye, and then at me. Nothing good could possibly come out of this girl’s mouth within the next few seconds. There was an evil glint in her eyes that I recognized only too well.

“Are you Phil? Your boyfriend short! Tall, but short!”

Fuck, there it was.

“This isn’t Phil,” I said, before even thinking to rectify the part of her statement that was far more concerning: “And Phil is not my boyfriend, either, Darcy, we have been over this. Troye, Darcy, Darcy, Troye. Be nice and say hi. Darcy, I mean.”

“Hi,” Troye said. I was a great person. I definitely had the decision-making skills of a life coach or whatever. Who even knew how to make decisions these days? Nobody, probably. Right and wrong were fluid words in a giant grey soup that was the world. Realistically, I probably had the decision-making skills of a piece of toast. Which were none, not at all. I might have possibly just been a stupidly advanced piece of toast. Maybe all toasts could read minds, and we would never know. My mind was a fucking mess. “Nice to meet you, Darcy.”

“Hi,” Darcy replied begrudgingly, openly dissatisfied with my guest now that she had discovered it wasn’t Phil. Yet again, I had grounds to suspect that she hadn’t heard the part about Phil not being my boyfriend either. She only managed to keep the frown on for about three seconds though before breaking back into a giant smile. “Mum said you can’t come today! Mum lie!”

“Ah, no,” I said. There was a lot of false information going around here, and while precisely none of it was malevolent, it was still giving me a headache that I didn’t need. Thoughts kept floating in and out of my head as people walked by in the street. It was of slight, and slightly evil comfort to know that Darcy was hearing them, too. “It’s just your lucky day, little one. Now how about you go back to wo- to your game, and Troye and I will make some coffee? Would you like me to make hot chocolate just for you?”

It was a damn lucky thing that Darcy couldn’t read my mind. She couldn’t know my secrets, or she’d never shut up about Phil, and also know a lot more swear words than she already did. It would be a goddamn fucking disaster. While she was as adorable as a four-year-old could get, she also had the vexatious habit of talking a little too much, and not quite knowing what better not to talk about yet. Having been given access to the minds of people was a bit like having been given unsolicited and unsupervised access to the Internet at all times, at the age of four. It wasn’t good. I had been through it. At least Darcy wouldn’t have to teach herself to keep her mouth shut.

“Just for me,” Darcy said, sticking her tongue out at Troye. I sighed, but nodded.

“Phil as in your flatmate Phil?” Troye asked thirty seconds later. We stood behind the counter, unhygienically leaning our asses against the surfaces. Louise surely wouldn’t mind, just like she wouldn’t mind I had switched on some more lights, or was currently eyeing the already displayed foods. It smelled suspiciously like there were croissants in the oven, and like they were almost done, too. The coffee maker was roaring to life behind me, overly loud in the slightly awkward silence. Everything was in perfect order, so there was nothing for me to do, no reason to stall. It wasn’t even my shift. Darcy was humming Disney songs. It occurred to me that I might have to reply to Troye’s innocuous question.

“Yeah,” I said.

“You two together?”

“No,” I said. The heat creeping into my cheeks was absolutely and solely due to steam from the coffee machine. I had to get that milk warmed up for the hot chocolate, and for the coffee. “It’s just a running gag with Darcy. And Louise. Her mum, by the way. Sorry, I should be explaining more things. What kind of coffee do you want?”

“Just black, please. I’d rather my sugar be solid,” Troye said a little distractedly, obviously thinking about something other than coffee. I wasn’t having this conversation with him. Not when I knew about his grindr habits. I focused on the act of making coffee. It wasn’t a very good activity to focus on at all; much too easy. It left me too much room to think. I was semi-glad when Louise interrupted. The other half of my emotional state was plain mortification. Like mother, like daughter, was that what they said? I just fucking hoped I wouldn’t turn out like my father.

“Dan! Did you finally bring your boyfriend? I thought he was taller! Also, shouldn’t you be sweating over an exam right now? I have your schedule right there in the back!”

“Good morning, Louise,” I said weakly. “Phil is still not my boyfriend, and you can just be glad this is our neighbour Troye and not Phil himself, because otherwise that would have been really awkward.”

“Everything is always awkward with you,” Louise said, pulling me into a hug. She then went straight on to pull Troye into a hug, too. “Good morning, not-Phil. Dan has never talked about you. Oh, you are all way too skinny, you boys. Take as much food as you want to, go sit down, just-”

“I quit university,” I interrupted her. Kill a fire with a nuclear weapon, right? No, not right, but if most politicians seemed to think so, I could use it as an excuse for now. My main motivation was, after all, to get Troye out of this. He certainly wasn’t my boyfriend, and in this case, him being Troye, I didn’t even want him to be, and Louise certainly wasn’t my mother, although I kind of did want her to be, in an absolutely non-creepy way. Although my mother and her had one thing in common in that consent for touching was not a requirement. In my books, it was. I could tolerate Louise’s hugs, at least. She smelled like baked goods.

She also stuttered now, having been interrupted.

“Oh.”

“Oh,” Troye added, one eyebrow raised. “Did that in any case happen prior to excessive Mario Kart yesterday?”

“It might have,” I confessed slowly. “Listen, I want coffee and croissants and that is all I came out for. I’m feeling so attacked right now.”

“You’re coming out?” Louise quipped, immediately covering her mouth with her hand, and thus also with the croissant that she had been holding. She looked like a walking TV advertisement for croissants. “Sorry, sorry, sorry, no meddling, no assuming, although you don’t look happier but then again it’s early and you just want coffee so I’m guessing you feel good about your choice? I’m assuming again, aren’t I? Do you feel good about your choice?”

“Everything is always awkward with  _ you _ ,” I snorted. “But yes, thank you. I have zero idea what I am doing, but obviously I feel great hanging in the air like this. I mean. It’s better than university in any case.”

“You work here, you’re doing something,” she insisted. “I’m proud of you for making the decision. I would offer you free croissants, but you would’ve gotten them anyways, so just- You know what, I need to go back to baking. I do that better than talking, I swear.”

“I also don’t really care what gender people are, I hate most of them anyways,” I blurted before thinking. This was why I didn’t have a lot of conversations. I liked dumbfounding people too much, and I liked making self-deprecating jokes too much, and I liked being painfully real too much.

“So now you are coming out?” Louise rolled her eyes. The audacity! “I’m done with you for now. Here.”

She threw a croissant at me a little too violently and vanished back behind the curtains. I loved roller-coasters. Especially emotional ones on Friday mornings. But the coming out, vague as it had been, hadn’t made much more of a difference to my absolutely swirled emotional state at this point. I attempted to control my facial expression and make it neutral, at least. My muscles wouldn’t quite obey me. Oh well. I didn’t trust myself to manage a convincing smile. I quit trying to organize my features into any shape at all.

“Uhm,” Troye said, looking sympathetic, with all his features fitting together. “Coffee?”

“Right.” I busied my hands swiftly. It gave me the chance to turn around, too, and to put an end to the struggle that was a natural facial impression. The coffee didn’t take very long to make, though, certainly not if it was meant to be just black. I had to turn back around a little sooner than I would’ve liked to, two cups of coffee in hand. Mine had significantly more milk, being a latte macchiato and all. It was obviously the superior choice.

“Thanks.” His glance flickered over to Darcy, who was still humming Disney songs. “They’re quite something, aye? You good, mate?”

I walked over to the window tables and sank into a cushioned armchair before responding. The black velvet always had a way of swallowing me that immediately made me feel more at ease.

“Yeah, don’t worry about me,” I grinned finally. Because he wasn’t Phil. And the person I really should’ve been talking to, should’ve come clean to about the mindreading, and about my stupid feelings, although that was secondary, was Phil. I wasn’t going to have a breakdown in front of Troye. In his books, I still had some dignity at least. I wasn’t going to spill all of my issues onto this beautifully unique small table for Troye to see.

“By the way,” Troye added. “I’m gay. Not trying to make a move on you or anything. Just don’t want you to be the only one with a dramatic revelation. Sorta. Stupid idea?”

“No-one tops my drama. I actually wish Phil was my boyfriend,” I sighed. Oh well. I was just clarifying that I was not making a move on Troye, either. “I feel like a fucking twelve-year-old. Also thanks. For the support, you know.”

He cackled, then stifled his own laugh when Darcy stopped humming to look at him inquisitively, and took a big bite of his muffin instead. The glint in his eyes never subsided though. Had I actually managed to make someone happy, instead of adding to their misery?

“These have to be amongst the most bizarre twenty-four hours I’ve ever had,” he finally said. My point was made about my life spinning out of control. “Honestly? Everything’s just been upside down since I came to England.”

I groaned.

“That was a fucking terrible joke.”

“You have terrible humour.” Troye shrugged.

“I beg to differ,” I said, faking an offended gasp.

The situation felt fine. I was in a space that made me feel safe, with a person that didn’t make me feel terribly unsafe. I was having fun. At least I thought so. It wasn’t as easy, as natural as with Phil. Well. Nothing about the situation with Phil was really natural; but with him, I was mostly holding back, wanting to do more than I did. I didn’t have to make the least bit of effort to smile at his every joke. I had to make an effort to not constantly snuggle up to him, maybe. It wasn’t natural how fast I had become ready to fall for him, or how dependent I was on him; that wasn’t natural at all, and definitely not the base of a healthy relationship. Not that Phil would ever want a relationship with me. Why would he. I was just a lanky noodle of a person with a dust cloud of a soul and a giant secret I was keeping from him.

Maybe it wasn’t fair that all of this was going through my head while I was talking to Troye, but was that my fault? It was life itself that wasn’t fair. Life, and death as well. I could identify more easily with that second concept.

With Troye, I had to make an effort sometimes to stay listening to the words streaming out of his mouth fast and coated in an Australian accent that had me smirking from time to time, and absolutely puzzled once or twice. Maybe three times. I wasn’t a well-travelled person. I didn’t force my laughs, and I barely did force my smiles; but there was more concentration behind it, more of a strain. It was still easier than with most people. It would get easier over time, too, I was sure.

Troye told me about the music he played, small gigs here in pubs and sometimes just in the streets, to make money. He told me about his siblings. I mostly made self-deprecating jokes when I talked, but that was fine. Listening was easier, and Troye had obviously needed someone who would listen to him. It wasn’t like he knew that I’d been doing so for ages. It wasn’t like he would ever know.

Louise opened up the bakery at one point and started participating in the conversation from behind the counter like it was all normal. And although normality was, for all intents and purposes, merely a concept, I was starting to realize that it was a feeling, too. This felt normal.

It felt less like the absolutely abnormal Phil situation and more like a scene one would realistically expect of a human life in the English society of the twenty-first century. This, of course, meant that at one point, I felt as drained as I felt exhilarated by the illusion of having my life together, the illusion of fitting in and the illusion of knowing myself a little bit.

The strain grew stronger by the minute eventually. Darcy was a ticking time bomb, having not yet learned tact. Any minute, she could spill my secret. Any minute, Troye could know that I knew all of his songs, and not only because the walls were thin, but also because his thoughts were there, were always there when he played, and full of music, just music. This was something I could add to my scientific research on this curse, and by now it would soon be at dissertation level: The more creative, the more passionate a person was, the louder, the more vibrant their thoughts became. Sadly, doing a dissertation on the specifics of the mind reading powers I was inexplicably cursed with would probably lead to me being dissected. Which was, although fairly similar in purely linguistic terms, a wholly different thing and not something on my bucket list.

I was honestly surprised that at least one of my secrets was still intact.

Luckily, it was Troye who announced that he had a lunchtime gig in a small, dingy pub somewhere close to our apartment complex, and would sadly have to get going.

“It pays the rent,” he explained, his face falling only slightly. I couldn’t imagine him in a place that smelled of old man drinking beer and still reeked of smoke from back when smoking indoors had been allowed, in a place where they hung up trophies from the chase despite never having been to the countryside, and where the only lamps were dark yellow and covered in dust. “What can I say. I’m a struggling artist, waiting to be discovered.”

“I wanna hear your music,” Darcy cried, jumping up from her chair. A customer, who had been trying to choose between various loaves of bread, looked vaguely amused and also vaguely terrified of this hurricane child. Louise sighed from behind the counter, but didn’t interrupt her daughter. “Wanna go to a pub.”

“How about I bring my music here instead, just for you? I can stop by again.” Troye winked at her. He was going to make it big in the pop industry. Not just because his songs were indisputably good. He also had the necessary charisma, and easy-going politeness required. Louise threw us both out into the drizzle of rain after he had thanked her twenty times too many for her hospitality, and for the food. I only just managed to grab a pain au chocolat for Phil, and then we were hurrying back through the rain.

It was an unceremonious goodbye in the corridor as we were both searching for our keys; I was exhausted, and all out of smiles, and Troye was in a hurry by now. His eyes didn’t meet mine anymore, his glance flickered back and forth without ever focusing.

Phil was thinking about lava lamps. No, he was googling them and trying to determine just how they worked. I only had to step into the flat, to close the door, and something inside me regenerated itself immediately. It was sorcery. It was Phil. It was unquestionably unhealthy. I sighed. And smiled. Was I now a twelve-year-old boy, or a forty-eight-year-old mother of three? Taking care of myself did feel as complicated and unmanageable as I imagined taking care of three children would be.

“Phil! I’m home,” I called out. The thinking about lava lamps and which shade was preferable stopped immediately. Were lava lamp videos his newest obsession after sloth videos? Although those were absolutely timeless as I had to admit. The lava lamp videos could be an intermittent pleasure. Why was I even thinking about this? I shouldn’t know, and thus, I shouldn’t care. Where had my maximes gone, my principles? Oh, right. To hell. Where I would follow them pretty damn soon if this went on.

“Have you brought me anything?” His shout back made me sigh, and smile. Fuck. I was a forty-eight-year-old mum.

I wouldn’t let myself think about that. It was too much of an identity-crisis to deal with. I had more important things to do. My feet were aching to get out of the shoes, and the bag with the pastry for Phil was slightly warm in my hand, the grease bleeding through the paper and onto my hand. I walked over to the living room, shoeless and now a little cold in just my socks that had various holes in the general area of my toes. Phil was on the sofa. His socks looked more comfortable than my own, fuzzy and pastel purple. This (mostly) grown man spent half his money on socks. Possibly more. I threw the paper bag at him with an exaggerated scowl.

“There, dickhead.”

“Oy,” Phil said, stabilizing his laptop on his thighs and then just deciding to put it aside altogether. Food first, always. It was basically a house rule. “If I remember correctly, I read you a bedtime story last night? You never even told me if you liked it.”

The last sentence hung softly in the room, flashing bright yellow, flashing desperately for attention, but the flashes were weak and they didn’t manage to hurt my eyes for how quiet they were in their alarming brightness. All the words barely slipped out of Phil’s mouth, barely made their way to my ears. Had I stood any further away, they might have withered away on the way like the daisies children picked, those that were dead by the time sweaty hands had carried them to the children’s mums, those that would never be saved. I was determined to save these words.

“I loved it,” I said. I might even love you, I thought. “Honestly, Phil. It’s brilliant. I’m so thankful that you shared it with me.”

“Shush,” Phil said, still in this small voice that alarmed me, but his cheeks were tinged pink now, and his eyes were beaming with a smile. This time, it was so bright that I should have wanted to look away. I never usually felt the need to blind myself by staring straight at the sun. I found this time that being blind to everyone and everything in the world didn’t matter to me, so long as I could still see Phil. I had reached a Shakespearean level of drama, if I could trust my English A-Level notes on just how much of a hopelessly pathetic dramatic that guy had been.

“No,” I said, much too late. “I’m also requiring much more reading now.”

“I can give you the link, then you can read all of it,” Phil said, blushing harder. The pain au chocolat rested uneaten in his hand. I didn’t say that I had found the page long ago.

“I’d rather you read to me,” I blurted instead. It wasn’t an intelligent choice, but it was by far the better one. The air hung thick in the room. I was restless somehow, as energetic as I hadn’t been since probably before kindergarten. It might have had a little to do with wanting the subject to change fast, before Phil, who currently resembled a fish more than a human being, could actually get out words while opening and closing his mouth.

“Let’s do something,” I said. “Like, go to town, or something. It’s Friday!”

“I- Fri- Okay? I mean, of course, great! Do you think they have put up the Christmas decorations yet?”

I watched closely as Phil scrunched up his nose and furrowed his eyebrows ever so slightly. His pale face reflected the light of the screen, and as he stuttered to react, it was green, making him look sick although he was simply confused by my suggestion to go out into town. I, at least, was confused by my own suggestion to do so. Normally, I avoided even walking downstairs to get the mail as much as I could. The dim white noise of thought up here in the apartment was more of a busy nightclub in the streets, the three or four voices clear of neighbours in my head joined by millions of others. Usually, my head took it upon itself to form the bass, giving me terrible, pounding headaches.

The light shifted to red, and Phil’s bewildered expression shifted to a child’s excitement. He gave me a smile that made my insides feel like I had turned into a lava lamp myself. His smile was a solar flare. NASA should be categorizing these smiles. Maybe I, being already well-trained in scientific research, could embark upon this mission instead. Or maybe I should just not to that, and instead focus on piecing the inner workings of my body back together so that I could actually function like the semi-normal human being I was at the best of times.

 

They had, of course, put the Christmas decorations up already. It was certainly cold enough; we wandered through the streets in sweaters and coats, and in Phil’s case, clutching a candy cane latte. I didn’t even know how that worked, how candy canes gave any other flavour than just sugar, but as long as it made Phil happy, I was happy, too. Be that his drug of choice for today. Mine was ibuprofen against the headaches. It was indisputably worse for my health than a cocktail of sugar and caffeine, which, admittedly, I had also already had today.

“Dan, look, they put a Santa hat on this succulent!”

“Dan, look at those lights!”

“Dan, look, they have Christmas themed lava lamps!”

I relished Phil’s excitement. I wished I could have matched it with my own, wished I could have been the friend he deserved instead of one he had to constantly pull along, both metaphorically and literally, as he grabbed my sleeve and once even my hand to pull me along behind him, leading the way through the endless sea of people with their endlessly atrocious thoughts. Phil’s hand pulled my body through the crowds that always, always, always flooded London, even when it was just past lunchtime on a Friday, and Phil’s light put my shaking, shivering soul through the darkness. Most people’s minds were abysses, and I got to fall into all of them. No wonder I rarely had the energy to even want to climb out of the one that was my own.

“Oh, Dan, can we go to Hyde Park? To the Christmas fair?” Phil looked at me with puppy dog eyes and a bright, bright smile, standing way too close in the middle of the crowd, with his face only centimetres from mine. I could feel the ghost of his words on my skin. How was I supposed to say no?

“Sure.” I gave it my best smile, but Phil’s beaming grin was bright enough for the both of us and about seven more people. We ventured through the crowds. The hurried mental voices of businessmen and businesswomen mixed with the train of thoughts in foreign tongues that came from the tourists perusing this historical part of England’s capital. The paces, the rhythms, none of it matched, and all of it blended in me. I was Harry Potter when Voldemort came too close.

I sneakily took another ibuprofen, which was just a little fighter with a battered sword, taking up the battle against a regiment of heavy artillery. And yet, despite the thumping bass that threatened to tear me apart while only I could hear it, I didn’t want to give up. I didn’t want to go home yet. I wanted to enjoy that spark in Phil’s eyes just for a little while longer. I wanted him to show me weird discoveries of his for just a little while longer. I wanted to snort at ugly emoji pillows that were the best thing ever, ironically, and I wanted to shake my head at the sheer stupidity of advertising gender-specific plants for a little while longer. I wanted to tease Phil with a kamasutra book for a little while longer, and watch him get flustered at the explicit pictures. I wanted Phil to grab my hand for a little while longer.

I wanted to feel this pain for a little while longer. It was, after all, what I deserved, what all of mankind deserved. Not that I was religious and believed in the doom of humanity because Adam and Eve had behaved incorrectly up there in paradise; I had enough of my own reasons to explain the planet’s suffering. I didn’t need to make up myths.

It was six p.m. by the time we got to the entrance to Hyde Park’s annual Winter Wonderland, and night was falling. They grey of the sky changed shade, slowly, until all edges were blunt, and all was soft in the vanishing light. It was dusk, and suddenly, the atmosphere created by the lit up Christmas lights became so much more magical that they almost broke through my bitterness. Only Phil’s light could do that, though. He shone with the brilliance of every single Christmas light in the city of London fused together.

Towards the middle of the park, there were fewer people running around, fewer children begging for cotton candy and fewer mothers wishing they could simply give them up for adoption. There were fewer stall owners already done with the countless customers’ shit, and fewer customers searching for the bad in all they were presented with. There was more silence, more white noise. I was tired. My head was pounding, screaming at me even though there were no screamed words anymore.

I closed my eyes for just a second as we stood alone on a small, battered bridge. I had collected trash here too many times to see the same appeal in it as Phil did. I kept my eyes closed, then. The world felt just a tiny bit more numb this way.

“Dan,” Phil said, and his voice was suddenly very, very close to my ear. A cold hand snuck into my own, and my breath hitched in my throat. Slowly, I opened my eyes.

My world shifted. Timespace warped, and reality, reality was suddenly nothing and everything and I couldn’t tell if a moment had passed, or a year, as we stood facing each other. All I could see was the ocean of Phil’s eyes, and maybe I could make up my own myths after all, maybe I could make up a myth where the waters in which life first came to exist were Phil’s eyes, in which the matter life was made of was Phil’s beautiful soul. Maybe Kingdom of Oxin appealed to me so much because it was just that. Because Phil had created it from pieces of himself, and that alone made it angelic.

Maybe I was in love.

Experiencing cheesiness was a side effect of that particular affliction, wasn’t it? I was fucking doomed.

Only, when timespace regulated itself and my heart sprang back into functioning and the Earth continued spinning and my dizziness hit me again, Phil’s breath was on my skin again, and my breath had to be on his. He smelled of coffee, and mint, and cream. He smelled of Christmas and of sunny days, of Christmas in New Zealand, probably. Maybe one day, we could have that. We could have a Christmas in New Zealand.

Love really made a damn fool out of me.

Phil’s lips were millimetres from my own. I wanted to kiss him. I wanted to kiss him so badly. I wanted to just kiss him, to forget about everything else, most importantly, I wanted to forget about myself, kissing him. But that wasn’t healthy. That shouldn’t be the reason I wanted to kiss someone. And I shouldn’t get to kiss someone I was lying to, and hiding the most massive part of myself from.

I buried my face in the crook of his neck. Hugging, I decided, was little more okay, and a little less of a horrible, horrible decision. Phil held me tight.


	13. Thirteen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello my lovely readers,  
> first of all i want to send out a big, big thank you for all your support!
> 
> i also want to give you fair warning for this chapter:  
> it's not only a lot of words, it's also a lot content-wise, so beware and don't cause yourself any harm while reading, please. some people make poor language-, others make poor lifechoices, none of the rest is specific.
> 
> otherwise enjoy, and if you can spare a moment, let me know what you think!

Ragged. Nothing, lost, everything, helpless, anything, torn. Free, falling; falling, free.

A giant disappointment.

I was a fucking mess, walking out of the meeting with my Faculty Student Support Officer. Honestly, what was new? This normally calming phrase regarding my mental state wasn’t as calming this particular time. A few things were new. And terrifying.

For once, I was a newly free man. A newly free boy. Or a newly free adolescent, perhaps, but that sounded a lot more fancy than I felt. I definitely did not feel like a young adult.

Against the stream. Masses of students walked in the opposite direction to me, not greeting, not seeing me, or maybe seeing me when I didn’t see; their thoughts, I heard their thoughts, but I didn’t focus on them, just like I didn’t focus on the faces, didn’t focus on the figures. Against the stream, I focused on the empty space. I looked at what wasn’t there.

Sometimes, determining nothing was easier than determining something. Or determining anything. Everything blended together to one grey mass. Left, in between, were gaps of nothing. When everything got mixed up and turned over, shaken, beaten, taken apart, nothing remained untouched. It was nothing I saw. It was nothing that got me off-campus. I walked into the nothing, and the nothing welcomed me home.

One would’ve thought my home was hell.

Apparently, I wasn’t good enough for that. I was good enough for nothing. Enough. Nothing. Thought, spoken, they sounded alike; and they might have been alike; nothing was ever enough.

So, honestly, what was new?

Nothing was new, and my appreciation for it. I couldn’t believe it had taken me over nineteen years to discover the secret of looking at the gaps, of not seeing and thus not being seen.

When children hold their hands over their eyes, and ask, where am I, we play along, pretend that because they can’t see us, we can’t see them either, although they are right in front of us. I didn’t have a lot of experience with children, and even I knew this fact. It was part of the child agenda, and part of the parent agenda as well; somehow, it was part of everyone’s agenda at some point in their lives. It had been of mine.

I felt like a child in this moment, only I felt less invincible, less protected; but gullible, I might have been gullible as a child again, because making my way through the sea of students, void of substance and yet impossible to cross, I didn’t see them, only the saw the space between the monster’s heads, and I knew they weren’t seeing me, either. I simply knew, like only a child could know. Truth. What a fucking mess of a word.

Life was life, was many things, was everything. Death, was death, was no things, nothing.

To find the truth of life was impossible because life had too many truths.

To find the truth of death was impossible, because death had no truths, none at all.

So who were we, meager, meek humans, to claim such an impossibility as the truth for our pet, our slave, our newest pretty doll to play?

I had to snap out of it, snap out of this, get my head out of the clouds, but I hadn’t stuck it up there. The clouds had come down to greet me, get me, envelope me in this hug that was the one distant relative that I never knew, and never would get to know, to be more than a tragedy mask. This hug that always made me feel like I was being thrown in a human-sized cauldron of boiling water, and choked, and drowned, in water that smelled like lavender and whispered, in a sickening sweet seductive voice that being lost was great, and adventure was what a little boy was supposed to want. That I was to be a marvellous pirate, the bravest, the most cunning, the most loyal and the smartest of them all. The clouds were the suffering that I was put through, and that I didn’t fight because I thought suffering was what life was about. I never told the distant relative that you couldn’t be all the Hogwarts houses at once. I never told the distance relatives that her hands were sweaty and the smell of lavender was burnt and that her mints were only a thin coating for the smoke behind them, the gallon, the ocean of smoke in her lungs, her chest, her heart, her body. I never said much to her at all.

Snap. Snap. Snap.

I had to snap out of it.

There was more around me than grey clouds tinged the slightly violet slightly yellow hue of disappointment and of quiet, quiet children’s fear and children’s secrets, of quiet, quiet broken trust.

There was more than the grey London sky, the grey London streets, the grey London people made greyer by the grey London Monday.

Was there more?

Was there more to me in this very moment than a walking shell and an empty, full head in the clouds? Was there more to me than trying to be everything, but fading, always fading into nothing?

There was a lonesome Christmas light in a window on ground floor; an electric candle, an illusion of homeliness in a prison of insufficient home insurance, an artificial flickering.

There were words floating in my head that were my own in bits and pieces and words in my head that weren’t my own but that were more coherent nevertheless; there were words floating in the streets, on walls and on banners and street signs. Words were there. Words were fragments of sentences, of stories, but they were words already and it could have been worse. They could’ve been letters. Could’ve been sounds. Could’ve been just ink, or the sliver of thought that always got pushed off at the edge, the one that wasn’t quite a thought nor quite a feeling, and infinitesimal in size, but infinite in worth in a way I would never know because it always, always escaped my grasp. That could’ve been the truth, or just something else that was impossible to hold. And keep.

They were words, and they were there. Fragments, but pieces, not shards.

Snap. Snap. Snap out of it.

I had to pull myself out of it.

I had always had to pull myself out of it.

Who else would be there to pull me out of anything? Who else would be there who wouldn’t just push me further in? Who else would be there who wouldn’t find pleasure in my misery, not technically because it was mine, rather because it wasn’t theirs?

My phone buzzed in my pocket.

My phone was there. My body was there, and my clothes appeared to still be there, too. I checked, just to be sure. Had I ever trusted myself? My phone buzzed again, still there, and sensation was still there, apparently. The ground was under my feet, and the wind was cold against my face.

Snap. Snap. Snap out of it.

Had I pulled myself out this time? Was I out of it yet? Out of it by being back in it? By having the world returned on its axis, by having reactivated gravity? Or had things been put into place for me?

The clouds were drifting high over my head now. A leaf hit me in the face, a last one tumbling down from a tree, and I took it and crunched it just to prove to myself that I was real. Maybe some bigger entity was doing to me what I was doing to that leaf. Being alive, and life’s worth, was subjectively defined, after all.

I was back, that much I knew.

I was back, and with my concept of space back in place, so was my concept of time, the two being essentially the same. I remembered, even if vaguely, the past minutes. I remembered the past seconds. My phone had buzzed.

I took it from the pocket of my jeans. My hands were clammy. There was the lightest drizzle of rain, just barely enough to make everything uncomfortably something, but yet damp, far from wet. I had never sure if that was rain, as per classification, or if it was a kind of amplified fog. I needed two tries to put in my password. I didn’t know why I was shaking, and for the moment, I preferred not to; it was better, after the clouds had just left, to stay with facts. My hands were shaking. It was hard to type. I managed. My eyes were hazy. I blinked, and the haze went partially at least away, enough to make out the words on my blaring phone screen.

Phil had texted. The light softened, the luminosity staying exactly the same.

 

 _dannn how did it go apple they releasing youu??  
_ _*are, how did that happen haha_

 

I looked up from my phone screen to smile and realized that while I had kind of lost spacetime a little, my feet certainly hadn’t, and my body had miraculously managed to stay upright by itself, all while I wasn’t even aware of the existence of such a thing as upright. I realized that I knew this street. And the next one to the right. The second one to the left after that. The house creepily painted with colourful, small handprints. I was probably the only person in the world to think of it as creepy. I was just glad the kindergarten wasn’t covered in animals’ paws, too. The children, at least, might have been asked for consent, although I highly doubted they had had an actual grasp on the situation.

Darcy, it suddenly hit me, had never wanted to play the Where am I game. She was a disillusioned child. It made her obsession with Disney movies seem a lot more grave, and important; a lot less commonplace.

But all of that was beside the point, a point so disturbingly predictable that now, fully conscious of it, I stopped walking on the grey, empty sidewalk, looking around in sheer awe.

I didn’t know this street like I knew the street I had grown up on; I had never noticed the mailboxes, the ivy on almost every house, or the bright blue door of number eight. But I knew it enough to know I had been here before, although mostly I knew where I was by knowing where I had to go.

The subconscious was wondrous, and a little scary, and a lot a lifesaver.

Five more minutes of walking, five more minutes of keeping my shit together, and then I didn’t have to be alone anymore. Then, I could be with Phil, and slipping away wouldn’t be such a catastrophe anymore. Of course, slipping not being a catastrophe was the exact same as not slipping, because it wouldn’t happen if it wasn’t one. Was that the general law of the world? It was one of the laws in my own damned world.

How fucking far had I walked while being out of it? How helpful had it been while crossing streets to see the nothing, to walk straight into it, while also apparently walking straight towards the (mostly) everything?

I resumed walking. It was harder now that I was focused on it; just like writing got harder when focusing on the mechanics of fingers dancing across the keyboard, or even of a pen gliding across a sheet of paper; just like breathing seemed an all-encompassing task when trying to do it properly, or like speaking was hard once I became aware of the way my mouth curved around every word, every sound. I managed, though, and there was no street to cross for a few hundred metres, no cars to watch out for and not even any people to run into.

Rain began to fall from the sky.

Thinking, breathing, and walking became natural and secondary again the moment Phil moved to the center of my mind instead, stumbling and pushing everything else out of his way in the process. Like he would.

Fucking Phil.

Not literally fucking Phil, of course. Hugging Phil, rather. But not even my thoughts could make hugging sound like a swear word, so fucking it was. I wish I was, kind of. And then I also didn’t.

I had driven myself mad over the weekend, just thinking about Phil, thinking about possibilities and implications, thinking about right and wrong, thinking until thinking didn’t make sense anymore and right and wrong mostly lost their meaning, until I almost lost my sense of black and white. That was a common occurrence, lately. It didn’t feel a lot like I was getting better at anything. It felt a lot like my life was getting better, and I ran behind it, unable to catch up.

It had always been like this:

Things were bad, or wrong, or whatever one chose to call it, and I was bad, or wrong, or horrible, because that was the way I had to be, because I wasn’t special, apart from being disillusioned.

But what was I when things were good? Was I good? Could I be good? Was it possible I had been under an illusion after all? Or had I just slipped under one now, had I stopped minding my steps and fallen for the lie despite knowing the truth? I wouldn’t be the first person to do so. Mankind liked appealing lies better than abhorring truths.

These reflections weren’t made easier by the fact that I still found it rather hard to trust myself, even at base level. Could I be sure I had hands? Could I be sure my decisions were mine, and my thoughts, those that I assumed to be mine, were mine? Could I be sure I had pocketed my keys? Could I be sure the words that had left my mouth were the same ones that I had intended to say? Could I be sure that Phil was real? Could I be sure that I was real? Could I be sure that I wasn’t imagining every single thing I saw and felt between me and Phil?

I had spent most of the weekend getting acquainted with the carpet. It had scratchy spots I hadn’t known about, and it was like my mind in another way, too:

It had no answers.

_I hope Luigi gets adopted soon. He keeps looking for Mario. I hope Mario is happy, and his new family didn’t think I was crazy when I told them that he likes red collars. They were always his favourite. They are his favourite now. He’s not dead, just gone. Oh, I bought these two. It’s sad he couldn’t take them with him. I guess they’re the shelters. But don’t dogs deserve goodbye presents? I would’ve given it to him. I’m as powerful in this place as this gerbil. I hope I make everyone a little happier, too._

_Fucking dog should stop fucking barking already. Best friends, ha. That Lester guy is obviously mad. Dana has more sense in her tiny head. How old is she now? Four? Five? Haven’t seen her in ages. Stop fucking barking. Also, naming all the animals, how fucking lame is he? Better than the kindergarteners coming over here to do it, but that’s only because one kindergartener is easier to deal with than a hundred. And Lester should at least be potty-trained. Should be. Maybe not. Ha. Oh for fuck’s sake will that dog shut up. I’ll kill it._

I had found Phil. And I had found the blue-haired dickhead. And by being the complete opposite of Phil, and heavily resenting everything about dickhead’s thoughts except the ability to tolerate a hundred children at once, I had found a way once again to temporarily define myself. If this wasn’t what I lived for. But I didn’t really know what I lived for, anyways. I might as well just live in one temporary state after the other.

Change was, after all, as inevitable as only death was.

_Maybe I’ll kill Lester along with it._

I threw the door open to the shelter, finding it difficult to uncurl my fingers, even if it was just to grasp the handle, and stumbled in only vaguely aware of my surroundings. My eyes were connected straight to my fist, it seemed. I couldn’t throw a punch for the life of me, still couldn’t, and I really should have taken a boxing class or two at some point in my life, but I was prepared to murder blue-haired dickhead with my bare hands.

There was no blue hair to be found in the room. I straightened out my tunnel vision, calmed my breathing a little. One of the tracks of thinking had stopped. It wasn’t Phil’s. Phil was still going on in the background about dogs and gerbils and which kind of animal feed was the best. He was still there for me to abuse, for me to use his thoughts as a lifeline without any consent whatsoever. And I did.

It was quite lucky I had, in hindsight. I didn’t fancy going to the ER for a broken hand, and I didn’t fancy being sued for punching a kid that was probably like seventeen. Oh god, when had I started referring to seventeen-year-olds as kids? Probably when I had realized that at nineteen, I wasn’t any less of a child. If anything, thinking of him this way made me feel younger instead of older.

Blue-haired dickhead had changed his hair colour. He was sitting behind the counter, just like he was supposed to be; lazily leaning back in his chair, fiddling with his phone, one ear-bud in. Actually, he most likely wasn’t supposed to sit like that. But it was the way I would’ve expected to find him. I just hadn’t found him in my blind rage. His hair was orange. It was with some satisfaction that I noticed the new colour didn’t suit him at all. Then again, being an asshole rarely suited anyone. I would know. I was an asshole, and definitely not the most pleasant to look at. Which was putting it with an amount of kindness I didn’t deserve on any level.

I’d stormed in there, pushing myself to be a hurricane, and to punch those thoughts right out of his head. My fury was more controlled now. It was nonetheless there; I could feel myself fuming.

I was two hundred per cent positive I looked like a fucking mess.

Angry, hair dishevelled, and standing there, all dressed up and nowhere to go, and I was dressed up, had been for the meeting, but my clothes were as dishevelled as my hair by now. I didn’t look any closer to being a responsible adult than orange-haired-dick did in all his acne-ridden teenage nonchalance, which, as I had concluded in my excessive study of my peers in high school, amounted more to teenage ignorance and a little remaining bit of childlike invincibility.

How was I supposed to proceed, now that punching wasn’t a rational option anymore? Because how would I explain it? How would I justify my actions, and mostly, how would I justify them to Phil?

I couldn’t. And I couldn’t punch this guy. And I couldn’t ever go to police after hearing the thoughts about how someone was going to be kidnapped. Or killed. Not that that happened a lot in England, but it had. And I couldn’t go to the school counsellor when I heard someone think about suicide. I had had to figure that one out.

But I rested my case. People did not want me to be snooping on their thoughts.

“Mate,” he said. “Aren’t you friends with the weirdo Lester? What’you doing here, his shift’s not over yet.”

I really, really, really wanted to punch him.

But I couldn’t do that, either. In the grand scale of events, it should’ve seemed like a minor inconvenience. Why did it matter to me?

“Uh, I, came to look at some dogs?”

It mattered, I knew, because Phil was concerned. Phil, who started thinking about me as soon as I finished my sentence. He could not have heard. Otherwise he must have heard dickhead’s words, too. The clamour in my head grew louder for a moment as a group of kindergartener’s led by their teachers passed by right outside the shelter door. I only barely made out what dickhead said next.

“‘S not a fucking pet zoo.”

“Oh, and I thought it was,” I replied, only just letting the sarcasm bleed through my voice. It was already a rare steak with anger. I was already vulnerable enough. Sadly, I had lost my teenage nonchalance, and I hadn’t really developed my adult superiority yet, the kind to be freely used whenever talking to people and wanting to make them feel small. Yet was such a hopeful word.

“Just piss off,” he sighed. What professional language. I knew I could do that one better, at least. It gave me just the hunch of superiority that I needed to sharpen my anger, to make it precise, and also, to keep it contained. I would, one day, get the chance to harm him. I would, somehow, figure out how to protect Phil.

Phil obviously was not allowed to know I was trying to protect him.

“If you don’t mind, I’ll go looking for Phil instead.”

Who was I kidding? I was still burning hot beneath my charred surface, charred by anger, resentment, and bitterness. My voice wasn’t calm, or clear, even. I sounded like I was choking on a bite of food too hot to swallow. It was all very dignified, of course.

“Dan?”

“Just get him out of my eyes, he looks like he’s on some kinda shit,” dickhead sighed in direction of Phil. Phil, who stood in the doorway with a worried expression distorting all his sunny features. I needed to stop making him worry about me. But I couldn’t. I was selfish like that. Phil ignored him. I’d known he was the better person out of the two of us; it didn’t sting so much anymore as place a little grain of salt into the open wound each time I saw evidence of it again.

“Hey,” I said intelligently.

“C’mon,” he said with a warm smile, a smile that I sometimes had the audacity to think was only for me. It wasn’t. But I might have been the only asshole he ever gave it to. It was the smile that made me want to try. “You can help me feed the cats.”

It was the smile that made me want to stop lying.

It was thus the smile that both glued me together and tore me apart.

We walked in silence, even after two heavy doors separated us from dickhead. There were birds shrieking somewhere on the right, and I heard, and finally noticed now, the dog barking that must be Luigi missing his Mario. I shivered, realizing that in a way, I was Luigi, and Phil was Mario. Only Luigi probably didn’t have the means to end his miserable friendless existence. What was it with the drama today?

“You look like an angry kitten,” Phil said finally, as he was getting a massive bag of cat feed from some storage closet. I wasn’t paying a lot of attention to the way, only to Phil, which was well enough to follow him. “Did something bad happen at university? Or somewhere else?”

“The meeting was alright,” I said. No, I snapped. Shit, Phil didn’t deserve this. He’d dealt with me sick, and he’d dealt with me depressed, he’d even indirectly dealt with my anger issues, but he shouldn’t have to deal with me throwing a fit like a five-year-old.

“I’m officially a free man,” I added with the biggest smile I could muster. It felt wrong to twist my facial muscles this way. And what a lie it was. Phil, if anything, looked more concerned, and that stupidly made me even angrier at dickhead for putting me in this situation, but I couldn’t be angry at him without being angry at myself. It wasn’t like he’d said the words. He’d thought them. And I wasn’t supposed to know.

Phil opened the door to the massive room where the cats lived. It was obvious that this was what the Kingdom of Oxin flyon territory was based on, what with the incredible amount of scratching posts that someone, most likely Phil, had colourfully decorated. I wasn’t supposed to know about that, either, not about that part of Kingdom of Oxin. We hadn’t gotten that far yet, and we never would if I finally came clean.

I kept getting myself deeper and deeper into this web of lies, untruths, and words unsaid that specifically should have been said.

“That’s great!” Phil was so bright, and I? I didn’t deserve any part of him.

“Yeah,” I said. I wanted to kiss him, couldn’t stop looking at the curve of his lips, couldn’t stop wondering if he’d been using his lemon flavoured lip balm. I had to tell him about the mindreading. I already knew so much about him that he hadn’t wanted to share, and yet, there was so much mystery about him. Was this flickering of his glance in concern? Both kissing him, and telling him would probably end up with me homeless, and sleeping on Louise’s couch or something. Maybe I could hide out in the bakery. Maybe Louise wouldn’t notice. Darcy certainly would, but I could easily bribe her. In any case, the connection between me and Phil was not one to base a healthy relationship on, even if he insisted it was fine, even if he trumped his own already angelic self yet again. All of this was solely and completely my fault. It was, in fact, rather unlikely that any relationship I was part of would ever be, in any way, healthy.

“So what’s up, then? Or, forget I asked that, you don’t have to tell me. Want to cuddle some dogs?”

His words were my undoing.

He’d dropped the bag of cat feed on the floor, stepping closer to me, just a little, and facing me. The moment he placed a cautious, ever so cautious hand on my arm, I threw all caution to the wind. His eyes were searching mine, searching answers, searching something I couldn’t define, and I didn’t have it in me to break the eye contact even though it was hurting something in me, hurting somewhere like I was being stabbed with a butter knife, slowly, agonizingly, and sweetly, sweetly painful.

I couldn’t tell him.

I couldn’t not kiss him, though.

I couldn’t not use him as a lifeline when everything was so close, so close to falling, falling, falling apart, when I was so close to tumbling over the edge. I didn’t want to tumble, to stumble, to lose control. So I did the only vaguely reasonable thing I was capable of. I kept control, and I threw myself over the edge.

I wrapped my arms around him, and this time, instead of burying my face in his neck, I never once broke eye-contact, I didn’t hide away. He could’ve fought me, right? He could’ve told me to stop? I wanted to hear his thoughts about me, wanted to hear if he was up for this, but words were an impossibility, a foreign concept I couldn’t grasp, comprehending them further away than comprehending metaphysics at this point, and I could not trust myself.

I leaned in the last few centimetres, and touched my lips to his, slowly, softly, but desperately, and falling closer into him with every second, a tentative touch soon growing into more, into something harder and harder to control. I should’ve know that purposefully unleashing a storm didn’t make me master of it. Phil tasted of strawberry, sweeter even that the sour lemon I’d been anticipating, and my body was on fire, on fire with electricity. I was alive. At what cost?

Phil didn’t pull away.

He kissed me back. He kissed me back, moving his lips sloppily, and then I was hit by the sudden realization that Phil wasn’t only surprised, he was inexperienced. All while still kissing Phil, still marvelling at how perfect and how right this felt despite all reason, I had to come to terms with the fact that it was my duty to be careful here. It wasn’t that I had a lot of experience, per se. And all the experience I had was connected to dark, dark times. Phil was so light though that none of them could reach me. It was like watching them play behind a screen, instead of reliving them. I could avert my eyes from the repeated seven minutes in heaven, or rather seven minutes in hell, that had been part of my attempt at stopping the thoughts from invading my head by being popular. It had turned out that I was socially awkward when mind-reading wasn’t a factor, too, and that purchased relationships, obtained by knowing all the right things to say and all the right buttons to push had made me more lonely than not having any friends at all. I didn’t dare cast my eyes on other screens. I let them flutter open instead.

Here I was, kissing Phil. His eyes were shut, and I felt dirty for watching him, for breaking this unspoken rule of kissing, and seeing with all but the eyes.

What was I doing, kissing Phil?

What was Phil doing, kissing me back? What was he doing, taking his pity this far?

And what the actual fuck was I doing, kissing Phil? It was like our lips matched, and it was slow, and agonizingly sweet. Our mouths were barely opened. It was nothing like I had ever felt before, and feeling itself was nothing like it had been before. I hadn’t known this many nerve ends were connected to my mouth, and to my back where Phil’s hands rested. I hadn’t known that I could feel this light. I hadn’t known that gravity was optional. I hadn’t known that my hand was going to make its way into Phil’s hair until it was there, and I felt the soft texture under my fingertips, until Phil’s hands on my back curled slightly, ever so slightly into my shirt, and held it.

I never wanted to stop. So I knew what I had to do. What was the right thing to do.

I pulled away, slowly, and deliberately. I never took my eyes off Phil. I couldn’t stop using his light to blind myself. I couldn’t keep doing it. What was I supposed to do when my only choices were impossible, and impossibly wrong?

I had initiated the kiss. I had pulled away. I was left wanting.

Phil opened his eyes three seconds later, three seconds too late.

_Fag. Gonna beat him up. Proof. Fucking fag. Knew it._

“Sorry,” I managed as all air was pressed out of my lungs. None of us had heard the door open; none of us had heard it close. I had no idea how much time had passed while I was lost in Phil, and also still lost in myself, too lost in myself to ever consider the stupid choice I had made right, or reasonable.

Here was another, and the ultimate reason why I was a fail.

Orange-haired dickhead had seen. Phil was in actual, acute, imminent danger. And there was nothing I could do without coming clean. In fact, dickhead was very, very little concerned with me, letting a lot of thoughts slip through the net that held all the important information away from me. He was very much concerned with Phil, though, in a way that made me want to puke my guts out.

Phil stared at me, eyes wide open, unbelievably blue, iridescent, and so, so soft, and so, so vulnerable. I wanted to hold him and never let him go. This time, it was only partly for my sake.

“I’m sorry,” I repeated. Only I wasn’t sorry I had kissed him, not really, although I tried hard to be. I was sorry I had stopped. And sorry I couldn’t explain. And sorry I had put him in danger. And sorry I couldn’t fucking explain. I was sorry for being weak, for being a coward, for being so much less than Phil deserved, I was sorry for being alive and sorry for having forced myself into Phil’s life, his flat, and now, to an extent, into his innocence. I was sorry for a lot of things, but I wasn’t sorry for the one thing I, in this moment, should have been sorry for.

Phil didn’t say anything. He stared at me.

There was nothing malevolent in his eyes; no disappointment, no rage, no pain. Or maybe there was, and I couldn’t see it. It wasn’t like I could trust myself to be a judge on Phil’s feelings, and thoughts, about me. It wasn’t like I’d ever heard him think about any romantic relationships, or kisses, or fucking sex. It wasn’t like I knew anything.

I certainly didn’t know what to do next, except say sorry all over, all over again. I’d already thought the word so often, so quickly now that it had stopped making sense, that it had lost all it’s meaning and had become merely sounds, merely mental letters, unable to contain what I really wanted to say. And couldn’t.

Although that I couldn’t was just a symptom of my cowardice.

When Phil spoke, his voice sounded like it came from far away. In his eyes, something was missing. A door had shut.

This wasn’t the conflict I had anticipated. It wasn’t the dramatic climax of all the tension between us, it wasn’t the collapse of my universe, or the creation of the new world. No.

It had been more than I could’ve dreamed, and yet, it was so much less, and already now, it felt like the kiss might’ve been a dream, hadn’t there been orange-haired dickhead’s thought-snippets cruising around in my mind, holding a knife, or a machine gun constantly going off, hadn’t my lips still been tingly and touched, the ghost of Phil’s lips still on them. Hadn’t Phil’s hair been all messed up, and hadn’t the silence been so heavy, I might not have trusted myself the kiss had happened at all.

I believed it to be fairly likely that my wishful thinking was to make up something as realistic as this kiss. It was deceiving, and painful like that.

But all the light, that part couldn’t have come from within me.

Phil spoke.

“Dogs?”

I could only bring myself to nod. Sorry was the only word that my mouth was willing to form, and sorry, despite being appropriate in any situation if said by me, wasn’t an appropriate answer to this particular question. Yes was. Otherwise, it would’ve been final, and undeniable that something was deeply wrong.

We walked over to the designated dog space of the shelter. I cuddled about six of them while Phil fed them, talking quietly to each one, and even while I was cuddling dogs, I couldn’t stop watching Phil. There was something urgent about his posture, something urgently lost. I didn’t want him to shut part of himself away from me. That wasn’t what I had meant when sorry had been the only word I’d been able to say. But how was I supposed to ever communicate this without making the situation worse?

Phil was confused enough, and withdrawn enough from me already. I had cracked the trust between us. Coming clean now would break it. I was a masochist. I wanted to prolong the agony of the inevitable.

_Fag. Shifts end at the same time._

I was holding a corgi, and focusing on Phil, on his eyes, on his lips, damn me for focusing on his lips. They were slightly puffy. I was the reason for that.

It wasn’t something I could be proud of.

_Beat him up good. Bet he can’t throw a punch, the weakling. Not going to annoy me much longer. Bet he’s too much of a coward to even tell on me. Ha. Serves him right, the fag-_

I followed the corgi across the room when it decided that I was giving it enough attention, which was true, and ended up accidentally stepping too close to Phil, and it was like I had stepped into lava. Breaching his personal space any more right now would be the worst thing to do. I had to leave him alone. I had to give him time to think. Maybe I had to give myself time to think, too, but nothing good generally came of that, and I’d just had an existential crisis. I was beyond saving, in any case. But Phil. Phil deserved to be treated right. Even if it physically hurt me to have to leave him in orange-haired asshole’s hands. It made me want to puke yet again.

Phil wasn’t a weakling.

I, on the contrary, was.

“I should get going,” I said. My voice wasn’t my voice. It was all metallic, and the sound reached me from further away than Phil’s words had. “Thanks.”

I didn’t say sorry again. I didn’t dare to bring up the kiss. I just tried to convey all I wanted to say and also all I didn’t want to say, but should’ve been saying, in the simple, and by definition meaningless word thanks. Did meaningless imply that it was a word beyond saving, too, or did it imply that I could fill it with meaning? Even if it was the second option, I probably would’ve had to know precisely which point it was that I wanted to get across.

“Oh,” Phil said. Another meaningless word. Another variable. What was I supposed to substitute for x here?

The room wasn’t silent, or even quiet, with dogs begging for both of our attention. But it was like a layer of snow, a layer of shredded dreams and shredded possibilities and shredded half-sentences that would never be said and shredded confessions that would never be made had suddenly covered everything, and everything was unaware of it except for me and Phil. Somehow that made the burden heavier. But I had created it, and I was going to carry it until my breaking point, so long as I could prevent Phil from reaching his.

“Can you get milk on the way home?”

 

I got milk on the way home. Then I sat, and waited, and tried not to think, because thinking really was what cause every single one of my problems. It was my diseased mind, my own toxic thinking, that destroyed a little part of me every day.

It was other people’s thinking, other people’s diseased minds and diseased hearts, that destroyed a little more of me every day.

I would’ve been infinitely better off as a sea sponge, undoubtedly. My face already wasn’t symmetrical, and life constantly put me into a metaphorical blender that quite literally had me struggling to reassemble myself. I wished I wasn’t a person, wasn’t self-conscious; I wished I didn’t have to be aware of everything I didn’t want to be aware of, and then I wished I was aware of the necessary things I always seemed to miss.

So I waited, and I thought, and I played some Animal Crossing, and then some Tetris, and I did my laundry and then I did Phil’s and I played some more Animal Crossing, and I cleaned the living room meticulously, and I cleaned the kitchen and did all of the dishes and re-organized the fridge.

Anxiety was enormously beneficial to my productivity. It didn’t matter that I was light-headed, or that my hands were shaking, or that just about every major thing in my life, a sum which constituted of Phil, a future in which I was self-sufficient, and Phil, a sum which was thus irrational, made up of impossibilities and illusions, was going wrong. No, none of it mattered. I had this under control. I could decided where this block of cheese went, and where this opened can of baked beans would go. I could make sure that there wasn’t a speck of dirt on the living room table. As long as I could keep myself occupied, I could keep myself upright, and I could keep telling myself that there was something right about my actions.

There wasn’t. I had left Phil alone.

I didn’t once puke, even though I felt so sick that it might have been beneficial. I hadn’t exactly eaten today, either, and five pm had passed.

Phil’s shift had ended at four.

His walk home took no longer than half an hour. Something was terribly wrong.

Phil’s key turned in the lock just when I was cleaning a mug for the fourth time in a row. No thoughts had announced him. I hadn’t expected any.

“Hey,” I called out, my voice too loud in the small flat, and my mind too empty despite all the thinking to come up with something to say. Or maybe it was too full. Production had reached maximum capacity. “I got milk.”

“Oh, good,” Phil called back. I listened, straining my ears, as he took off his shoes, and  placed his keys in their spot, and hung his jacket on what was probably the wrong hook, and I hated myself for listening and for being able to tell precisely what I was listening to even though I didn’t see any of it.

Where we ever going to talk about the kiss? We weren’t likely to, and I knew it. We were adults in the way that we had both perfected the art of shoving things under the figurative carpet if we wanted to. But I could still hope, right? Hadn’t someone really smart once claimed that it was hope, only hope, making us fear?

Phil stepped into the kitchen, pale, and so obviously in pain just walking, just standing upright, that I would’ve sacrificed myself to turn back time right then and there. To never let this happen. On second thought, I was ready to sacrifice much more than my little, insignificant life. Much more. But that wasn’t how the world worked, and although timespace was a fluid thing, once it had moved on, it would never return to the exact same as before.

“Hey,” I said. A millisecond later, I remembered that I’d already said it. It hung in the air between us. Phil wasn’t smiling. His wounded expression distorted his entire face, and it was my fault.

“Are you okay?” I asked, despite knowing that he wasn’t. I was digging my own grave, here, had been for a while, and had been find with it. But this, this was starting to feel more like I was burying myself alive.

“I’m good,” Phil said; Phil lied, and then he bumped into the kitchen table ever so slightly, wincing audibly. Shit. Fuck. I had brought Phil to lie. Somehow, this was worse than murder. “Ah, I, fell. Over a dog. You know. Clumsy me. They were a bit, um, aggressive, after you, uh, left.”

Phil didn’t know how to lie. But he was doing it, was lying to me; and I had done that to him. I wanted to close my eyes, to hide under my covers until all of this was over, but I couldn’t, because it wouldn’t be over. Broken trust didn’t just fix itself. Seedlings ripped from the earth and torn apart didn’t just grow into majestic trees. They died. Just like whatever had been between me and Phil was dying, would inevitably die, and was in that sense already somehow dead. Any further wrong action was but the funeral. I wasn’t ready to bury what  might have been if I hadn’t been so damn stupid, if I had only half, only a quarter of Phil’s decency.

“Oh,” I said, too late, too hesitantly, too disbelievingly. It wasn’t enough. My entire body was itching to reach for what was out of my reach, a universe and then some away. “Are you in pain? Is it bad?”

“I’ll be fine,” Phil muttered without any emotion in his voice. Fuck, this was all so wrong. This wasn’t Phil anymore, not the Phil I knew. This was just an empty shell of him.

“I’ll make you dinner,” I blurted, even though it was technically to early for dinner, and even though it probably wasn’t what I was meant to say. It wasn’t the right thing; there had to be a right thing! Phil would have known what it was if I had been in pain. But I wasn’t, and he was, and I was so fucking helpless. Useless. “And, uh, I’ll get you ice? Yes. I’ll get you some ice. And you can sit down. On the sofa. Or, no, you can do what you want of course. I’ll make dinner.”

“Sounds good,” Phil lied. His voice was strained. He didn’t look at me, staring at a point just over my shoulder, just so someone paying less attention might’ve thought he was looking at them. He got up, then, slowly, and never looking at me. I had fucked up. I had fucked up majorly.

I made soup, and croutons, although this time we had a lot more edible food in the house. There were actual vegetables in the soup, pieces of carrots carefully chopped and still all different sizes, pieces of potatoes that were practically melting into the broth. It turned out too salty, of course it did. I was a goddamn cliché, and for Phil, I was a sap. Only maybe I should have made this effort a little bit earlier, back when there had still been a seedling to water, not a crumpled piece of paper to restore to its original form. I had thought watering a hypothetical seedling was daring, and dangerous, and outside of my abilities. The task I was faced with now seemed plain impossible.

Phil was in his bedroom. I prepared a plate for him, and placed it in front of the door, calling out as softly as possible that dinner was ready, and waiting right at his door. Then, I took my own plate to the living room, sitting down at my side of the table. The small, rickety thing felt huge like this. I had never quite been this lonely ever before. And I’d thought I knew what loneliness was. I hadn’t, definitely not. There might’ve been a void inside me before. But now, there was emptiness. I’d never known the difference until I felt emptiness, until I felt its hunger, its want, for what had gone and left the gaping hole behind. I’d been an empty field, in a way, and now, I was a bombed out building, a burnt-down town, a planet in nuclear winter. There was nothing peaceful about the silence of emptiness.

I heard the door to Phil’s room open softly, and close just seconds later, but I heard no footsteps in the hallway. So he’d taken the plate inside his room. At least he was eating. At least he’d accepted that offer. But who was I kidding? This was angelic, perfect Phil I was thinking about. He’d still be thinking about my feelings, like one cared about a child’s feelings, and he’d be eating the soup like a parent ate a child’s indiscernible sand creation. He hadn’t accepted my peace offering. He’d only been too kind to turn it down.

I had no right to breach his privacy. I had no right to invade his personal space. I wasn’t entitled to the truth about his pain. But I wasn’t noble like Phil, and I ached to somehow make this better, to somehow make Phil come back to his body, to himself. To somehow hear Phil’s laugh again, and see his smile.

I needed to leave. He’d be better off without me. But I was still selfish. I couldn’t leave before I had figured out a way to make him okay. A way to give him at least closure. A way that would leave him never thinking about me again. It was ironic how much my goals had changed in just a few weeks. But once I left, once I was gone for the sake of Phil, I couldn’t promise to anyone, least of all to myself, that I’d be around much longer.

I didn’t know what to do.

Texting my mother was not an option.

Texting my honorary mum was the best one I had. Weak as I was. Coward.

 

 _hey quick question sry to bother yuo what do you do when youve kissed someone and theyve locked themselves away in their room  
_ _askin for a friend obvs_

 

Her reply was immediate.

 

 _Oh, Dan.  
_ _I’m sorry. Did you two have a fight?_

 

Had we? Or hadn’t we? Here, already, a question I couldn’t reply to, a mystery I couldn’t work out.

 

 _no shouting or anythnig but i think i made a huge mistake  
_ _fuck_

 

She took a little longer to reply this time.

 

_Have you apologized?_

_yeah_

_Then maybe you just need to give him time. Is this Phil we’re talking about?_

_yeah_

_If he’s anything like the person you always talk about, he won’t just ignore you forever. You two will talk this out. Just give him a little space. Maybe he needs to figure things out._

_what if its all over and he doesnt want to be friends anymore_

_Then you will survive that, too._

 

I could’ve cried right then and there, but I wouldn’t allow myself to be so hypocritical. My fault. Not my right to cry. I didn’t believe her, though. It sounded reasonable, and she was right in the way that Phil wasn’t someone who would just never speak to me again; Phil was someone who, even if he dreaded being in the same room as me, would insist on knowing I was fine, not because he liked me or anything, just because he was Phil and I was, in his eyes, human. In mine, I wasn’t so sure about that. Or rather, I was sure that I was human. Only I was the kind that didn’t deserve to be treated like one. Which wouldn’t stop Phil, of course. I was pretty sure that even if he hated my guts, he’d still be kinder to me than I was to people I loved. So how did I know he didn’t hate me already? He’d lied to me. Phil Lester never lied.

 

_Dan?_   
_You still there?_   
_Don’t do anything stupid, okay? Love is complicated, and heartbreak sucks, but Darcy and I still need you, and you’re greater than a broken heart._   
_Okay?  
Text me, or else I WILL show up on your doorstep. I have your address, remember._

_okay_

_Dan!_

_I have a shift tomorrow dont i wouldnt dream of letting anyone else down not like i dont constantly anyways_

_I’ll have Darcy work on that attitude tomorrow, just so you know !!_

_:)_

 

My plate was empty, and my heart was a tiny bit calmer than before. I hated to be the one spouting this bullshit, but maybe talking had helped. Maybe. I hadn’t totally bought it yet. I cleaned my plate, and put it away neatly, and stored the leftovers in the fridge.

It wasn’t seven pm yet, not even close. I went to bed, and I listened, listened for Phil’s thoughts. I felt dirty doing it, but I did it.

I heard other thoughts. The neighbours downstairs had someone over, surprisingly not for a foursome or something similar. I listened into the silence, the emptiness that was sucking at my soul from the general direction of Phil. Troye was writing a song, writing a line, crossing it out, writing a line again, and crossing it out again, and bleeding through his thoughts, too, I felt that itch of frustration that made my leg twitch and my eyes flutter open as soon as I dared to press them shut. I listened for the silence that was sucking at my soul from the general direction of my heart.

Falling in love was exactly like I had always expected it to be.

Harrowing it was, and cruel, not because it made life more painful for me, but because love came with caring, and when I was involved, caring for someone came with hurting them.

I wasn’t one of those brave children who’d choke out nine when someone asked them to rate their pain as they were literally dying.

This was a ten. There wasn’t anything that could’ve possibly been worse. To turn back time, I would willingly be crucified for eternity. If I could unmeet Phil. If I could delete myself from his life. If I could place a charm on him to make him forget I’d ever existed. If I could guarantee Phil would be happy. I would happily endure any pain, and it would never come close to ten, because knowing the cause would always, always make it bearable. But what did I have left in a world where timeturners and memory charms and magic didn’t exist? I’d broken the only promise to myself I’d ever genuinely intended to keep.

The gentle, glowing mind of Phil Lester had been torn apart. And I had my hands covered in its blood.


	14. Fourteen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings: mentions of child abuse, mentions of suicide, mentions of self-harm, mentions of murder
> 
> a lot of you hated me for last chapter. so. i wrote another chapter in a day for you. love me. please. (i know you don't actually hate me, don't worry. this chapter just happened to be done. next one will take longer than two days though!)

Getting up after a sleepless night was a special kind of torture. 

I hadn’t ever managed to go to sleep on an argument, and this night was no exception. Every minute, every second I lay awake, unable to close my eyes and unable to keep them open at the same time, I was painfully aware that in my predicament, I wasn’t alone. Being conscious in and of a body so fast asleep it could have been dead was awful, was like being buried alive in my own skin; it was more awful knowing that Phil probably felt a similar thing, his own kind of sleeplessness. There was the irreconcilable gap between us, that in a way, I had already found my death in multiple times. It felt larger knowing that both sides were mirror images of each other, and yet, never to be aligned. Not realigned, that would have been the wrong word. Any alignment had been a pleasurable and poisonous illusion.

I hadn’t, this time, caused only my own suffering. My guilt weighed twice on my lungs.

The bathroom mirror held me captive when day had risen, although the sun was yet to do the same. I hadn’t meant to look. Hadn’t meant to remind myself that this was now my miserable existence. Hadn’t meant to be faced with the ugly truth of the shadows under my eyes, and the fact that in them, I, in a way, finally recognized myself.

Wasn’t this creature the horrible person I’d always known I was?

It was calming, finally being able to succumb to my own image of myself and my own expectations of what life was going to be. But black wasn’t only nothingness, like grey was to me. There was something deeper behind black, something darker. And so there was fury boiling in my chest still and further scalding all those organs beyond recognition that I needed to survive. Or into recognition. After all, a soul couldn’t be black if it hadn’t been burned, and covered in the vilest sort of smoke. So even boiling fury, as much as it caused uproars to all the parts of me that I so gladly chose to ignore and put aside, useless as they were, my sick heart, my malfunctioning lungs, my constantly empty stomach, never filled, not even after meals, caused a certain calm to my brain. It was the aftertaste of anger that soothed an infection of shame and of contradictory desires.

It was thus the aftertaste I didn’t deserve. The anger was rightful as far as emotion could be. It was directed at myself, where it belonged.

I had initiated the kiss, and making matters worse was that I couldn’t bring myself to regret that part, either. Not the part where I had given in to Phil, given myself over to Phil, who had never asked for me.

I had lost part of myself in the process, and I could not have been happier. And I was so, so wrong in that, and so, so ruinous, because here I had given to Phil not a good part of myself, one that admittedly I would have had to find first; something to enrich his already rich person instead of staining all his gold; I had given him something I was happy to be rid of. That was not what love meant. It wasn’t dumping all my burdens on someone. My intention, at one point, might have been semi-good; at the moment of the kiss, I had been void of intention and made instead of want; the outcome though, the start, the finish, and  the shaky lines of the part in between, it was all a catastrophe.

I stared at myself in the not-quite-so-clean mirror, and I recognized myself, and I hated what I saw more deeply than I had ever managed to hate myself.

I had a whole new, a whole new awfully liberating knowledge of myself and all my atrocious, villainous being. But what the fuck was I supposed to make of that?

Breakfast, probably. It seemed like a good idea to give my body at least some fuel before going to work. Working was not what I felt like. I was in full existential-crisis mode, and not only that, but I had actual problems to solve this time. I needed to fix this thing I had broken in Phil. I couldn’t leave before that. I was stubborn like that.

But I couldn’t fix it right now, anyways, because Phil, on his own terms, had to come out of that room first. I’d violated his personal space already more than was ever excusable. And wallowing in self-pity was not my job to do, not my privilege to make use of. I had work, and I was going to go, and I was going to put myself aside for awhile. Now that I knew what that was, that seemed like not such a difficult task, to just forget, or rather, to hide it from myself. I couldn’t throw a blanket over the abstract. I could very well hide a bottle of vodka under my bed. Comparing myself to a bottle of vodka was so absurd and at the same time, or maybe because of that, so fitting, that I would’ve laughed if I could’ve figured out how to even bitterly pronounce that sound.

I had a bowl of my own cereal, although I was rather craving Phil’s, making a point of sticking to what was mine this time, and then poured Phil a bowl of his. I placed this along with a  jar of milk in front of his bedroom door. It was no elaborate breakfast making; rather it extinguished the unfair advantage I had of knowing with absolute certainty that Phil had not forgotten about me for a second all night long, by showing that I hadn’t, either. I refrained from writing a note. Words were dangerous, ambiguous things.

I shouted, and left, and I only looked back twice. Phil’s window went out to the street. I forbid myself to look up. I forbid myself to consider the possibility that he might be looking at me. Nevertheless, I straightened out my back, and pulled my hood up to cover the back of my head. It was cold. That was the reason. It was cold, and I needed to something about my posture. It had nothing to do with Phil. It had everything to do with Phil.

Louise greeted me with a bright red face and holding a giant package wrapped in brown paper. It had the word fragile stamped on it about a thousand times, and my analogical bottle of vodka promptly received a wrapping in the exact same style. Louise appeared to be barely able to bear its weight as it stood quite a bit taller than her. Darcy sat on a table in safe distance, giggling.

“Help,” Louise sighed, panting a little, her voice breathless. Her apron, normally immaculate even after baking, making me swear she had three back there, or more, was rumpled and stained. “This just arrived and it needs to go against that wall, but it’s so heavy, and I can’t manage to unwrap it because I can’t reach the tape on top without breaking it. Pinterest always gets me in trouble, why did I think making the room appear larger by placing an enormous mirror on the wall could ever be a good idea?”

Darcy sighed loudly, obviously done with her mother’s complaining, but also not making an attempt to help, which, I had to admit, would have most likely made the situation more complicated. Wordlessly, I tore the tape of the top of the wrapping. On both sides, the cardboard fell off the mirror immediately. Louise was buried under half of it.

“Dan!”

I freed her, and reached for the mirror, too. It was indeed heavy as fuck. Bloody hell. Why  _ had _ she thought that? I might have been tall enough to reach the tape, but the muscles in my arms were practically non-existent. Louise was much stronger than I was. Came with the baking. And the whole having a child thing, probably. Darcy loved being carried around. Together, we had the mirror stabilized and unwrapped rather quickly. Only, it was now stable and unwrapped in exactly the place where it hadn’t been meant to go.

“Now what?” I gasped, trying to catch my breath.

“I have no idea,” Louise gasped back, just as breathless as I was.

Darcy had the audacity to laugh at us. I might’ve laughed with her, but physical work hadn’t quite been enough to banish Phil from the very front of my mind. Not quite? Not at all was closer to the truth. Positioned as I was now, and unable to move for the irrational fear of seven years of bad luck and also because it was a fairly nice mirror and must have been expensive, I had to stare yet again directly at my own, miserable face.

Oh how I loved introspection. I just enjoyed getting lost in the maze of my own mind so much. It was well-lit, any child’s delight, and every corridor let to an interesting new revelation, not, like, a wall because most paths were dead ends. It was beautiful. It had many doors that I was willing to open, memories I loved to poke around in, and I knew what lay behind every door, there were totally none that were so old that the writing on them was illegible. It was truly the place to be on a Tuesday morning.

The door to the bakery opened, pulling me out of my head, and I found Louise staring at me like she was about to call an ambulance. As this wasn’t a look I particularly liked being faced with, I turned around, as far as that was possible, and looked at the customer instead. It was the girl I had served on my very first day; the vanilla-scent girl whose boyfriend was really into fitness. Said boyfriend had come here with her this time, and he definitely looked the part. I sighed internally. How did they dare bring their healthy and happy relationship in here?

“Oh, shoot,” vanilla-girl said. “Did you want any help there, perhaps? Alfie, go help.”

“That would be fantastic, only if you can spare a moment,” Louise said, her eyes flickering over to vanilla-girl’s boyfriend. At least we weren’t actively gasping for air anymore; that job was Darcy’s now. She’d laughed too much. Ha.

“Sure!” Fitness-boyfriend, or Alfie, apparently, dropped his sports bag next to the door immediately and got to work. His voice was more boyish than I’d expected; a nice surprise. His smile was easy-going, too; it was a smile he seemed to have an endless supply of, one he could just flash at people whenever he needed to. He looked like he’d never truly been uncomfortable in his life. Inconvenienced, maybe, but not so sincerely uncomfortable that it was impossible to have a positive attitude towards the situation. I could have been the same; somehow, if things had gone differently. But rarely was it ever helpful to reflect on the past.

Louise directed Alfie, and we both pretended to help although really, he was the one doing literally all the lifting and all the manoeuvring. The mirror was in its designated spot in no time. It did look nice where it was now. The small, cosy space was still small, cosy, and well-lit; all the small lights even more fitting now that, as hard it was to believe, Christmas was approaching.

“This is lovely!” vanilla-girl exclaimed. Louise blushed slightly, or maybe it was still the effort tinting her cheeks a light shade of pink. Not as light as Phil’s when he blushed. Phil, whose cheeks were probably white now with the absence of feeling and laughter and the absence of warmth. How could I just have kissed him? How could I not have known better? How could I have allowed for him to be hurt?

“Awesome,” Alfie said, looking around with childlike wide eyes. Hadn’t I described Phil as a child before? Hadn’t I thought of him that way? It struck me now, and harshly, how wrong I’d been. I’d known he was strong, but all the while, I was still patronizing him. Even as I was trying to do better, I was patronizing him. Alfie turned to his girlfriend, who’d walked over to look at Darcy’s Disney colouring book. Her immaculate features were pulled into an immaculate smile that didn’t seem to carry a lot, if any, heaviness. How had they met? What was their stories? Would their thoughts be as pleasing as their appearances would suggest? “What sugary thing you getting today, Zoe?”

Louise shuffled over to stand behind the counter. I swiftly moved to follow. I was here to get paid after all, and by now, it had been my shift for a good fifteen minutes, and I’d accomplished nothing.

Zoe’s glance fell on me. She was expecting something, obviously, and not quite sure if her expectations were reasonable, were acceptable even. She didn’t ask, as was polite. I normally felt scorn towards people who moved easily through the spider web that was society, but today, I couldn’t help notice how much of that scorn was just plain jealousy, and I couldn’t find any sarcasm in myself to make the truth go at least partly away. Fuck.

“I got this one,” I said. My voice sounded rough even to myself. I ignored any glances, which meant also ignoring the smile I was sure had been sent my way. Around Zoe and Alfie, anyone probably felt like things were easy, like the world was a manageable thing and like you could paint over problems with a smile and perfect eye-makeup. I totally didn’t envy this girl’s makeup skills, except I sort of did. I had tried wearing nail polish in seventh grade, and truth to be told, that hadn’t gone well, not at school, worse at home. I’d never been enough of a boy to begin with. I still wasn’t the kind that could treat the breaking of gender roles like a toy and be considered cool, like I still wasn’t the kind that could through on a torn sweatshirt and look like every single hole in its hem was exactly where I had meant it to be. It was intention I lacked, and it was hard to work on that part when intention required goals, generally. I had a lack of those as well. And a lack of focus.

My hands were working, luckily. My ears, not so much, or, no, they were; just the connection between them and my mind was a little off. Perhaps they were insulted sometimes that they weren’t always needed for me to hear. I wished I could help them out with that one. Couldn’t.

Louise’s laugh got through to me just as I was adding a shot of vanilla to the drink. Vanilla-girl. She’d been my first actual customer. Not like I would have forgotten the order. Something like, no boyfriends allowed, it had been. I could have been with them. Social anxiety was a burden, but for me at least, not so much one that I couldn’t hold a conversation with people I wasn’t strictly uncomfortable with. And at least with Louise, I was comfortable. But here I was, when things could have been good and they could have been nice, hypothetically, thinking about Phil. Drawing clouds in over my head.

I piled marshmallows on top of the drink.

“Here you go,” I said, holding it vaguely in Zoe’s direction and attempting a smile which was hard but necessary, just trying, in all honesty, to not look like an axe murderer. It was hard to feel finer, nuanced emotions, when there was a screaming duet of anger and sadness, their voices enhanced by love of all things, the worst megaphone, echoing around my head. It was hard to put any other emotions on my face. I tried; but at the age of nineteen, there were no more gold stars for that.

“Thank you,” she said. “Anything you can recommend?”

“All and everything,” I said. She laughed. I hadn’t attempted to be funny, but the better. Alfie went to look at some decorated Christmas puppy cookies that I hadn’t even seen until I’d followed his gaze. Those were new. Apparently, they were worth breaking his fitness lifestyle for. I needed to bring Phil one. Ah, actually, I doubted he’d appreciate that a lot.

Fuck, fuck, fuck the blue-haired, no, the orange-haired kid who didn’t have anything to do with his life and his privilege except hating on things and committing homophobic hate crimes. Fuck the kid who could’ve been me so much more than I could’ve ever been Phil. Fuck him exactly for showing me who I’d almost become. Except my hatred was a little more general. Not like, focused on groups of people, because that, in my opinion, was just plain stupid. We were all in the same melting pot here. And also my hatred did not extend to animals. It never would extend to those pure creatures. I wished I was a hinduist sometimes, just so for this horrible life I was leading, I could be reborn as an animal and stop worrying. Stop fucking worrying.

“Dan?”

“What?” I looked up. I might’ve been cleaning the coffee grounds container for the past three minutes. That was okay. I wasn’t trying to interact. I wasn’t about to share my misery.

“Bye,” Zoe said sweetly. “Thanks for the drink. We’ll be stopping by again!”

Alfie waved with a gesture that was a little over enthusiastic. Something fell out of his pocket. Darcy ran over, picking it up, and I totally did not crane my head to get a look at it because why would I be nosy like that? It was a badge, a police officer’s badge. Shit, he did have his life together. Darcy marvelled at it, and Louise had to pull her away just so the two could leave.

I lasted for three hours after that. I dropped four coffees. I got five orders wrong. I also got about thirty-three right, and I did not drop like eighteen coffees, which I managed to safely deliver into the customers’ hands. Considering the amount of sleep I had gotten, which was conveniently none as it spared me the act of doing any math whatsoever, zeros being partly my friend and in this context, also kind of my deadly enemy, I could have been proud of those numbers still kind of going in my favour. Percentage-wise. Nevertheless, by the time Louise’s last batch of cinnamon rolls had come out of the oven, I was horribly fidgety, anxious with fear and anger and sadness and anxious also with fatigue, and my boss was mildly aggravated. This was Louise. She was more worried about me than aggravated, of course. I assured her quietly, so Darcy wouldn’t hear, although I was fairly sure she must’ve already been faced with just about anything the world had to offer, that I was in no danger of killing myself. I left out the part where I was in no danger just yet.

I channelled my anger a little, to appear more convincingly strong. Only, once I had let it come, it got harder and harder to control, constantly. So did my breathing. But Louise was beside me, shooting me these worried glances. Finally, she just shook her head.

“Nothing I can do, is there?”

I shook my head.

“You’d tell me if there was?”

I nodded.

“Go home. Fix things. Come back if you need to, okay? You are not as dependent on him as you think.”

“What-” Louise, fierce, and a little furious, didn’t let me finish.

“Sometimes, you know, you are so entranced with Phil that you forget Darcy’s here.”

“I thought-” I gaped at her, most likely looking even more stupid than normally, and I didn’t quite know what I’d thought. It was really scary how often being interrupted suited my stupidity.

“That cancelling out business? Looking at it logically, which is not my strong point I am a baker and I hired people for the organisation of everything mildly logistical here, if you are not thinking about Darcy, like not at all, but Darcy is thinking about you, and hearing your thoughts, then you wouldn’t hear hers so that it could cancel out again? Basically what I am saying is you’re so hopelessly in love that I’ve had to explain things to my daughter, and I’m saying, fix this, and we have a couch, too. Temporarily, of course. And I’d make you pay. I totally would, because I’m not dictated by my emotions or anything. And now leave. Get out. Your sarcasm is wearing off on me.”

She grinned while slapping me with a tea towel, but her eyes were serious, just like when she’d first decided she’d hire me. I had zero chance of contradicting her. Instead, I swallowed hard, nodded, and shrugged my jacket back on.

At the last second, I did pack a cookie, or two, for Phil. Not as a peace offering. I wasn’t bribing him. At least that’s what I told myself. I was just doing what I would’ve done before the incident. I was just pretending to turn back time, or to continue in a timeline and just put everything about the last twenty-four hours in parentheses.

Darcy clung to me a little harder than normally as she said goodbye. I hated that she knew something was up with me. I hated being the one who caused people trouble. There was enough pain in the world.

I was angry still as I stood in the street, the lava boiling just beneath the surface of my skin, and this anger was directed at myself, partly, yes, but also at the dickhead at the shelter, and I was strictly forbidden from hurting myself. I wouldn’t have minded just letting it out by cutting open its prison, letting it all out and finally letting myself be extinguished like a candle that had run out of wax. Self-harm, though, and I knew only too well, was rarely as romantic as it was made to be in fucking pop culture.

My feet moved without my consent, and not towards home. The shelter seemed to get closer with every time I made this walk, the distance vanishing into thin air with the stale taste of recognition. In people’s yards, Christmas decorations caught my eyes. I had never felt the magic less at this time of the years. And some previous years had been very far from magical already.

I heard his thoughts long before I got close, focused on them, picking them out in between the women fussing about school lunches in houses in my vicinity, out of the clamour of the nearby kindergarten. Already, not twenty-four hours later, I couldn’t believe I had been so focused on Phil that I had kissed him in this place, that I had been able to drown out incoherent thoughts of small children and all else in this neighbourhood that was so down to Earth, meaning there were no building reaching up into the sky, meaning thoughts travelled far and came straight at me. I had headphones in, but they were just plugged into my pocket. I couldn’t imagine voluntarily adding any more noise to this mess. My own thoughts, fragile at best, tumbled over themselves here, stumbling around, messily spreading anger and guilt and helplessness.

I felt powerless, had done that to myself. It was a little like I couldn’t get out of a well, being so deep down that the light of day was further away than the stars seemed in a light pollution ridden night sky. Screaming for help didn’t only seem fruitless, it also seemed quite hypocritical. I had willingly jumped down here, preferring it to getting scorched at the surface.

It was a bad analogy. I wasn’t lonely at the bottom of the well, was I? If I did reside there, I had brought my laptop, and the reception was good. Louise was on Skype.

_ Three more hours until I go home. I want to burn this place. I hate my uncle for getting me this fucking job. Oh for fuck’s sake what the fuck do you want now stupid rat. That’s not a gerbil. It’s too ugly. _

I pushed the door to the shelter open. The seat behind the counter was vacant. Even better. I followed the thoughts. I knew where the gerbils were kept here. The heavy door creaked open loudly, and the thoughts stopped running through my head. Well, dickhead’s did. The rest were still there, obviously; what were they going to have for lunch next door? I wouldn’t try to diffuse what those children were thinking about, so loudly and urgently and incomprehensibly that already I couldn’t fight the migraine. My eyes were droopy, tired, but I was energized.

“Hey,” dickhead called from a room a few doors away, sounding mildly alarmed, but bored otherwise. “This is a restricted area.”

“I don’t really care,” I called back.

“Fucking-” he began, then interrupted himself. I heard something bang to the floor, then hurried footsteps.

His face was angry as he stepped out of the room into the corridor that was lit a little too brightly, a little too lifelessly to be a dramatic background, by bare lightbulbs hanging from the ceiling. As soon as he spotted me, the anger vanished from his face. He laughed. It was a twisted laugh, and suddenly I didn’t hate him as much anymore as I had before. That wasn’t me. He wasn’t like me at all. I was horrible, he was horrible, but we were horrible in such different ways that suddenly the similarities I had been seeing and dreading all fell apart. I still hated him, but not for the same reasons now. He didn’t succeed in making me afraid of myself anymore. I hated him, the colour of it white-hot, because he had hurt Phil.

“The fag’s boyfriend,” he scoffed. “What’s up, man?”

I didn’t say anything, because although I had just come to a rather dignified realisation, I didn’t quite trust my voice to communicate this. I stepped towards him swiftly. He didn’t even move, didn’t consider me a threat. I couldn’t blame him. He was stout, muscular, and although slightly shorter than I was, leagues more apt for fighting. I wasn’t going to fight him.

My hand, already curled into a fist, twitched at my side. No, I wasn’t going to fight him. I stood directly in front of him. I channelled my rage.

I was going to beat him up.

My fist flew to his face faster than I would’ve thought it possible myself, faster than my own brain could follow, faster than his eyes could even widen, and it was almost comical how all his composure slipped away.

My knuckles were in instant agony, but I ignored that. I had more important things to do than tend to my own physical health or take care of myself. For now, I had a failure of mine to, if not fix, at least partly avenge. I threw another punch before he thought to react, and then, playing dirty as I knew I was, I kicked him straight in the nuts. He doubled over, and I was horrible, because I couldn’t help being satisfied. I kicked his knees. He didn’t fall, but he wobbled, and then I kicked again, and when he straightened himself up, I threw a fist to his stomach.

It went all downhill then, as far as I remembered. Things were blurry, blurry, blurry, my vision as much a mess as my mind, and I only really came to again when I was outside the shelter door, panting, staring up at the unchangingly ever-changing grey sky, and all that was burnt into my mind was dickhead, doubled over in pain, pain I had caused him, and it didn’t feel good, didn’t feel good to be this drunk on rage and drunk on brutality that I had known myself capable of, but never acted on before. It didn’t feel good to lose control like that. It had me flash back to the time I had thrashed Phil’s flat, made me flash back to this avalanche of feeling, of bad pouring out of me, and I hated, hated, hated it. No. It didn’t feel good. I didn’t enjoy the mental image of the physical pain I had caused someone, and because I didn’t enjoy it, I knew I was never going to get rid of it. My stomach twisted painfully on itself, my insides revolting against my actions. I made it down the road before my stomach emptied itself right there, right on the sidewalk in this respectable neighbourhood.

Once I could stand again, I had no choice but to walk on.

It didn’t feel good, and it certainly also hadn’t been the right thing to do, but when I thought of Phil, my conscience was a tiny bit clearer now, because dickhead had deserved this. Oh how fucking much he’d deserved this.

There was something warm running down my knuckles; blood. They started hurting again, suddenly. A dull ache spread from my right shoulder to my stomach and back. I wasn’t sure if that had been dickhead’s doing or if I’d simply hurt myself with my insufficient fighting skills.

I did deserve this pain though. So I trudged on, ignoring the people in the streets, ignoring the stares that I felt burning into the back of my head, ignoring the poignant silence of thoughts discontinued when I appeared.

I found the flat just as I’d left it. Phil thinking about me in his room, or perhaps not there, although I doubted it, although I hoped with all my heart he wasn’t gone, hadn’t fled and left me like this. Or rather, left like this. Leaving me wasn’t the issue. He had every right to do so.

A floorboard creaked in his room. He was here, thinking about me, then, at least on a tangent. The bowl and glass were gone from where I’d left them.

I didn’t call out, didn’t say hello. I didn’t trust my voice. The puppy cookies in my pocket were squished. I placed them on the kitchen counter. It was too late for them, just like it was too late for me to redeem myself in this mess.

My knuckles were bruised and bloody and somehow, I’d gotten dirt into the wounds without even realizing. The bathroom it was. Cleaning them gave me something to do. Dickhead was very good at not hitting people in the face. Not making it show. My shoulder hurt, but my face, aside from being ugly and distorted with the look of someone who’d not only seen, but also done dreadful things, was fine. Not bruised, at least. I was fairly certain I’d given dickhead a black eye.

Water ran over my knuckles, vanishing down the sink coloured red, and there was nothing romantic about fighting, either. Maybe there was nothing romantic about the world. Was it really too late? Weren’t the cookies still edible?

Fuck. Was this what growing up felt like? Was it realizing that sometimes, late was indeed better than never, and that there were some things that could not be as easily forgotten as a maths assignment if not handed in, if not carried out to the end, even if that end was bitter? I stared into my eyes and saw for a second a child, the child I had been. It was this that suddenly had something drop inside me. It was the mirror that for a second opened up something in my reflection that had been obscured for so, so long.

I ignored my knuckles and clung to the sink as the world started to spin.

I was back in my mind, back in the maze, and it was open suddenly, it had neon lights. My head hurt like there were actual construction workers in there, tearing down walls and hammering signs to doors and wreaking havoc in a place that wasn’t supposed to be more than a ruin, a cheap run-down hotel.

And I could read the doors all of the sudden, could know what was behind them.

I wasn’t exactly about to open them. That would have gone too far. But I saw them. And I acknowledged them. And it was like someone took a brick from my head with every sharp pang of a headache and with every little lightbulb that flickered on in a dimly lit space.

Pang!

My aunt, hiding behind that door, that door that had been closed for thirteen years, thirteen long years, longer than fucking Sirius Black had been in Azkaban. My aunt with her sweet smile and the bag of candy she carried with her at all times. My aunt in our kitchen, and my parents in suits and dresses, I could see them as I was peeking through the spy hole in the massive door, could see them leave the house in all their fakeness that I hadn’t quite been aware of then; my father in the suit that he’d wear to fancy dinners with many of his dates in times to come that for me had already been. I saw my aunts dark eyes and the darkening smile on her face as something in my tiny brain, even back then, had understood that nothing about the situation had been a game anymore, then, not even when she made it one, not even when for touches I didn’t understand, I got candy pressed into my sweaty little hand, not even when I clung onto her and cried because there wasn’t anyone I could have run to and I had been a trusting child. She was my aunt, after all. Shouldn’t what she was doing be right? I watched, merely watched and my heart tightened and my stomach churned but I didn’t feel, kept the emotional trauma away, and I tore myself from the spy hole as the memory started anew, replayed, and moved on, and it stayed where I’d left it, a ghost at the back of my mind. It seemed less scary now that I’d acknowledged it. It was uncertainty mainly that gave ghosts their power, wasn’t it?

Pang!

I doubled over, face sinking against the cold glass of the mirror and lost sight of myself for a second, but as painful as this was, I knew if I ever wanted to be able to not hate myself, I needed to go through a lot more pain, and I needed to acknowledge what had made me this way instead of always just producing the memories that pulled, pulled, pulled me down into the abyss, further, further, further.

Pang!

The girl was blonde, I remembered that, blonde and grown up and carrying cigarettes as she stumbled across the street next to the playground, and she was thinking about death and little blue pills in her stomach. Her thoughts were messier than mine had been at the age of seven, and I didn’t understand, not really, but I knew what she was going to do, and I followed, ran after her. My shouts remained unheard. I watched myself watch her jump again, again, again, again, like just that part kept getting replayed, and I heard the river although I couldn’t possibly have heard it over traffic then.

Pang!

Another brick fell off my shoulders, and I felt lighter again when I shouldn’t have been feeling lighter because this moment had never been meant to be about me, except now it was, except now of all times I was suddenly dealing with myself.

Pang!

I heard him, heard him think about the knife and the woman and the small sleeping child, heard him think, sitting on the same playground at the age of eight, and I knew what was going on. I hid. I never thought to scream for help. I watched myself hiding, and I didn’t let myself feel the deep shame, the deep helplessness again, but I watched it happening and I acknowledged it and my head was spinning now as in my mind, I ran past the doors: Pang! Pang! Pang! Pang! Gunshots of memories, memories of gunshots.

I couldn’t stop it from happening once the floodgates had opened. My knuckles were red still, but hadn’t they been, they would have been white like my face was, white like the diffuse light of dizziness coming at me from all sides.

And suddenly, it was over.

I sank down against the bathroom wall. My legs were shaking, my head throbbing, my eyes tired, so tired. But although I couldn’t physically bear my own weight anymore, I felt lighter somehow, part of the dizzy, muddled clouds.

All this acknowledging - how had simply acknowledging finally managed to make it all go a little bit away? And was it possible that secrets worked the same way? Was it possible that all this worrying would stop if I could just talk? Just tell the person that mattered, the person that I wanted to tell and because of that, thought I couldn’t tell? This felt ironically like coming out was always described on tumblr. I’d never particularly struggled with my sexual identity. Maybe coming out applied to more things than that in life.

When the dizziness subsided, my head was clear, and I’d made a decision. Up here, the constant clamour of my mind was reduced to faint white noise still, just like it had been that very first day of moving in.

If I had been Phil, I would have wanted to know all. I wouldn’t have wanted lies, or secrets. Phil was an adult, and I needed to stop patronizing him, to stop pretending. If I wasn’t telling him about the mindreading, it wasn’t for his benefit. It was for mine.

So why couldn’t I tell him? Because I was weak, and a coward?

I could tell him. I could now. I could have earlier. More, I should have earlier. But better late than never, right? Maybe that worked as better too late than never, too.

I wrapped a bandage around my knuckles, so tight it hurt, stalling still, but impatient, too. I buzzed with all the anxious restlessness of a sleepless night. The hallway was dark. The floor creaked under my steps. Somehow, all my senses seemed enhanced. I smelled Phil in his flat again, a smell I had gotten used to before that now was a novelty all over again. I walked slowly, but the walk was short.

Softly, I knocked on Phil’s door. No answer. I tried to open the door. It wouldn’t budge more than a millimetre, although clearly, it wasn’t locked; something soft was holding it in place, something that gave way only ever so slightly, and then had the wood stay where it was, blocked.

Phil had to be sitting on the ground, leaning against it. I slid down on the other side. Mirror images of each other. It seemed I was haunted by mirrors today. Maybe the world really had had to push my own stupidity right into my face for me to truly realize.

“Phil,” I said, or rather croaked, and then broke off, at a loss. Words weren’t enough. Not from me. I’d never had a way with them, always had too many, or too little, at all the wrong times. “I’m sorry.”

There was a long, long pause.

“I’m sorry, and I really hope you’re listening to me right now, but if you can’t, or, like, don’t want to, that’s also fine; I’m just going to say a few things, and I’ll leave you alone again then, I promise. If you want me to, I’ll leave you alone the rest of your life. I just- I just can’t leave this way.”

I took a deep breath. There were hot tears burning in my eyes, and I almost choked on the words that were yet to come, but stuck, but then I pushed on. I had to. I love you, I wanted to say. I didn’t. I held those words back. It took a while until they were ready to make way for others.

“I have- I have a confession to make,” I said in a hurry, mumbling. It wouldn’t work this way. He wouldn’t understand me this way. But where was I supposed to take all the air from that I needed to make my voice louder? I let my head fall back against the door, and imagined Phil sitting on the other side. I could do it for him. I could have done anything and everything for him.

“And this might sound crazy, it sounds crazy to myself; but I’ve been hiding it for too long and Phil, I’m so sorry. Hiding has broken so much between us. I really-” I love you “- I’m sorry. I keep invading your privacy and you keep on being so perfect and I know I crossed a visible line when I kissed you. I just- I feel like you deserve to know that I crossed the line long before that.”

I took another deep breath. Where to start? Where was I supposed to fucking start?

“Remember when I broke into your apartment? I used the spare key for that, the key I wasn’t supposed to know about, and I was so angry at you although I wasn’t supposed to know you, and although you had done nothing wrong, rather everything right, fuck, Phil, shit, I hadn’t meant to swear in this. The thing is-”

Fuck.

“The thing is that I can read minds. I have no idea how it works, it’s like a curse, I don’t- I know the mechanics of it, kind of, but I don’t really understand, not why, not how, and I can’t help it, I really can’t. I was in your head before you knew I existed. I was in your head and I hated it and there was nothing I could do about it, there is nothing I can do about it, the thoughts are just there, and you were so bright and so good and so perfect, and, Phil, humanity is really awful, you know, people’s heads are really dark places and I can’t bear it, but then you turned up and it turned out I could bear you being perfect even less. I was in your head, and then I got used to it, and started craving it, craving to hear your thoughts and to listen to you, and then I got closer to you and all the time I was so afraid, so afraid for you to find out.”

There it was. This didn’t make me feel lighter. This just had me absolutely, completely, utterly terrified. The words wouldn’t stop coming now, too many, too jumbled, too fast.

“I listened to you think about the most random things and I listened to you write Kingdom of Oxin, and Phil, you’re literally the best person I know. I never deserved you, and I don’t deserve you now. But I want you moving on in your life knowing that you changed my life, and you made me want to be good for the first time, and I am so sorry. I genuinely wanted to kiss you, I still do- but it wasn’t my place to invade your privacy, never was, and I should have stopped so much earlier. I’m sorry. You’re perfect, Phil. Your soul is the most beautiful soul I’ve ever seen, and your smile is my sun and fuck, Phil, I could just listen to your thoughts all day, I could listen to you thinking about rainbow raccoons and cereal and dogs with balloons tied to them instead of pigeons and I could listen to your happy thoughts as well as your sad thoughts and it breaks me to know I fucked up, but it breaks me more to think I might have broken a part of you. I’m not asking you to forgive me. I’m just- Here’s the truth. I’m not asking anything. Here’s the truth you deserved all along.”

I love you.

There was no reaction from the other side of the door, no reaction whatsoever, and the simple piece of wood felt more uncrossable than the Pacific ocean. I had run out of words. I was empty now, and tired. Only three words were left, stuck in my throat still. Every time I tried to swallow them down, they resisted. I was too exhausted to care, and too restless to sleep, too agitated.

I needed Kingdom of Oxin. And maybe it would help Phil, too. It was his safe space after all, and it had become mine.

I found the website easily, even with shaking fingers; I barely had to type in half a word before it came up as a suggestion, google knowing me better than I knew my damn self. Shaking fingers, shaking hands, and a shaking voice, I blinked away the tears, and I began to read the latest chapter.

“‘I need your help,’ Tabitha said. Her words barely reached Eliza, barely crossed the distance of just a few steps on the slippery ladder between them. She repeated them, louder. Eliza looked up wearily. There were tears in her eyes. The flyons were gone. The mountains were all around them, all encompassing and black and white. It was like everything was mountains and hardships, and all memories of breezy, warm summer days were distant in Tabitha’s mind. She clung to them like she clung to the ladder with freezing fingers, thinking of soft grass and sweet-smelling air, of running around in the hay. Both fairies were hungry, and worse, thirsty; they were exhausted, cold down to the bones. Eliza wanted to give up, and Tabitha wasn’t far from it. They had no strength left to go on, but there was no way back. There was only cold, and the smell of sulfur around them in this desolated, colourless place. Tabitha climbed a step back down, reaching for her friend’s hand, holding it tight.

‘You might think you need my help,’ she shouted over the roaring wind. ‘But I need your help. We are so close. Almost there. Just a little further, and it’s going to be over. We’ll be warm again, we’ll dance and drink orange juice, and swim in the river all day. We can-’”

I broke off as my hand gave up, my phone slipping to the ground. I was too exhausted to pick it up again. It was early afternoon, but the hallway was dark and my body didn’t care about the time of the day, didn’t care that I was sitting on the ground, cold and uncomfortable as it was.

“I want- I want the colours to come back to your mind,” I said quietly, and somehow still loudly in the absolute silence. “I want you to be happy.”

I was half gone already, half asleep, and my words might not have been comprehensible any more, they might not have left my mouth in the same way they’d left my brain, might have gotten lost on the way as I slowly faded into a darkness that welcomed me. Sleep came with peace, peace came with sleep, and I slipped without wanting to hold on.

“If you’ll have me- maybe- there might be a ladder to climb up for us, too.”


	15. Fifteen

Crash.

What the fuck? Oddly, the sound reached me first, before any pain, before any feeling, really. For a moment, I was no more than the thought of confusion, of alarm. My brain had woken up faster than my body. Which followed suit, though, and made me wish it hadn’t.

Shit. Were those needles, stabbing my back and my ass, my entire body? Why did it hurt so much? Where was I, even? And what just-

Oh. Oh, fuck.

I was on the floor. To be more exact, I was on Phil’s floor, my legs outstretched in the hallway still, but my aching back and my throbbing head definitely in Phil’s room. Pitch-blackness reigned in here. I couldn’t see a thing, but Phil had to be there, Phil had to be standing over me, because it might have taken me a moment to wake up in my exhaustion, but I definitely had not heard him walk away. Who else would have opened the door? I sincerely hoped it was Phil who had opened the door, not some demon, not sleepwalking me ultimately breaching the boundaries.

So here I was. Barging in on him, even if there had been no intention behind it on my part. Falling asleep had been quite inevitable. Shit, the pins and needles in my entire body were all-encompassing. So all-encompassing, indeed, that I realized after a long moment I would not have heard Phil walk away, because he was speaking, and had been for a while, probably, only that caught up with me first as I tried to get past the pain. I had not heard him speak until now, and the words were hidden like the sun behind clouds on a late September day, the meaning reaching me fuzzily. How fucking hard had I hit my head?

“.... sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, oh I am so sorry, Dan, fudge, sorry, sorry, sorry, shoot, sorry, sorry, Dan, are you okay, please be okay, Dan, Dan, sorry, Dan, sorry, Dan....”

At this point, one might have considered me an unreliable narrator. Surely I had a bad concussion and was just dreaming this? Maybe I, certified clumsy person, had actually managed to knock myself out by falling asleep leaning against a door? Phil’s door? A door that had been bound to be opened at some point?

I was exhausted. My breathing was going slow, in the way that always took me hours to achieve at night, the way that had me feeling I was going to stumble back into sleep any second, with every fresh intake of breath. I couldn’t do this being awake thing right now. Just opening my eyes to the utter darkness put a strain on my entire being as if I were staring directly into the sun.

Phil then turned on the lights. I was blinded immediately; blinded, but mesmerized. Unable to close my eyes now. My lungs were undecided about their next actions, which I found relatable, so they stopped, which I found relatable as well. For a moment, my entire world turned blue. Not a melancholy blue, not the blue of the edge of summer, or the blue of a winter night. Although those were beautiful as well, this one was different. I, of course, had a vast knowledge of colours and knew all the words to describe it. On top of that, I had a vast knowledge of feelings and knew exactly what it made me feel. I was helpless on the ground, helplessly both lost and found in blue.

Phil. The mediterranean sea in spring. Phil. Just Phil. Just blue. This blue was more hopeful than any shade of green, more peaceful than any shade of white, and more homey than any shade of red. My lungs got to work again, rattling and off-pace.

“Phil,” I breathed, despite myself. Shit. What else would I say to him? What more words were there in my active consciousness except for his name? Over, and over again? I clasped my lips shut so that it couldn’t escape the way I was thinking it, endlessly.

If my life had been a movie, streamed illegally online because there was nothing, nothing left to watch, seeing as I was totally above watching a teenager angst storyline; if I had come across this scene, me, on the floor, Phil, crouching over me, the both of us exhausted with bloodshot eyes and deep shadows under them, I might have laughed, laughed and complimented the cinematography of it. Here we were, strained, exhausted, here I was, vulnerable. There was nothing left of me to give.

I had given my all to Phil, had handed myself over to this man, or boy, or whatever that was in between, and my all might have been more bad than good, but at least I hadn’t solely given the bad away this time. And was it up to me to decided about good and bad? Not really. It was up to me to decide what felt real, not what was real, what felt true, not what was true, because how would I, a mere human of the below average kind, have known the truth, and have known reality? So this was it. I had given myself to Phil as a gift, and unwrapped myself completely - shit, this metaphor was going places I hadn’t wanted it to go. My mind was taking me places I hadn’t wanted to go. The point was that it was up to Phil now to make a choice, now that he could make an informed one, and I wouldn’t blame him if he decided to throw my gift away. Had I actually grown up a little?

A week of not going to uni, well, of officially and with full intention not going to uni, and I had learnt more than I had learnt in all my nineteen years of life, and all my thirteen and then some years of education. I should have guessed. There were about seventeen completely prepared rants about the faults of contemporary education and another three only about the rigidity of it, but this was not the time.

It perhaps wasn’t the time to think at all.

But Phil was silent, and I was silent, and this silence needed to be filled, needed to be filled with thoughts of my own because Troye was dreaming and the people below us were dreaming. The world was asleep. No, this part was; and it wasn’t, because me and Phil were awake, staring at each other.

It was time to wait for Phil’s cues, and time to realize that I was prepared to take full responsibility for my actions, the good, the bad, and the human.

We were silent some more. My entire body ached, but I didn’t dare to move.

“It’s three am,” Phil muttered finally.

My eyes widened; I felt the strain on my skin, my facial muscles that hadn’t moved in a while. I scrambled to get on my feet, ignoring the pain. Phil wanted me to leave, wanted to carry on with whatever his mission had been, possibly going to the loo and then going right back to sleep, and if this was my cue, then that was it. I would take it.

I didn’t have to look him in the eyes as well, did I?

“Dan,” Phil said. It was taking me embarrassingly long to get up, and to reorient myself in the vertical. His voice was soft, and although my eyes were fixed on the doorknob, I could see the way his lips curled around my name. I was obsessed with Phil Lester. Couldn’t say I was proud. But there were still worse people I could have been obsessed with. I was a follower in that way; weak, always obsessed with something, someone. I had been obsessed with worse things, even.

His hand touched my arm, a ghost of a touch so light I feared breathing because he might move away from me. It stayed there.

“Mario Kart?”

Oh. There was a weight to this suggestion, a new beginning. More three am Mario Kart. He wasn’t going to throw me out. His voice was ridden with sleep, the words laced with many unspoken ones. The air cleared, or maybe it got heavier; my perception was distorted at this point, blurry, and focused solely on Phil.

He might not have been able to talk, not just yet, or he might not have been wanting to talk just yet, but a subtle peace offering hung in the air between us, and for me, for now, it was enough.

“There needs to be more three am Mario Kart,” I whispered.

Phil’s smile lit up my heart. Maybe it set it on fire a little. Maybe that was the part that hurt, and comforted me at the same time. I could feel it burning, aching and warming me at the same time, and this was what life was, wasn’t it? The good things and the bad things, all in a giant melting pot that made it hard to differentiate between them. Or maybe there were no inherently good and inherently bad things. I found that hard to believe, looking at Phil. I saw no childlike features anymore, no man who needed to be protected and fussed over. Just the person I loved. No big deal. Except it was a big deal. Phil was strong. And being capable of childlike joy only made him stronger, should have made him stronger in my eyes right from the beginning. I needed to stop with the cheese, but I had come to a few revelations these past twenty-four hours, and one of them was this:

Bitterness wouldn’t get me anywhere in life. How the actual fuck had it taken me so fucking long to figure that out? Probably, a little voice whispered in my head, that is because you weren’t ever trying to get anywhere in life. I hated it when this voice, smug and an incarnation of every person I had ever disliked, was right.

I was in dire need of a hug. My world had fallen apart, and now all the pieces were spinning. I needed this hug to ground me, to put me back together. Just a hug.

I didn’t ask for one. Phil moved his hand away, moved his entire body away. It took me embarrassingly long to realize he wasn’t leaving. He was walking to the lounge. Waiting for me to follow. I swallowed, and took some tentative steps on my shaking legs. Piece by piece, step by step. By the time I reached Phil, and his cold warmth illuminated the room yet again, I had solved my own puzzle, but myself back together. The construction was still fragile, but I could do this. I could respect Phil. I could put his needs above mine for once.

The illumination of the lounge might also have been due to Phil switching the lights and the TV on. Those explanations were far too mundane for my taste. And those lights weren’t warm. Phil’s presence was.

I realized only then that the atmosphere in the flat was finally back to normal, mainly because I hadn’t realized exactly what had been off before; now I knew. Cold, freezing cold had been oozing out from under Phil’s door. It was autumn in the streets outside, late autumn even. December was rapidly approaching. The air was cold, the world dismal as it always became at this time of the year, before the Christmas lights lit it up again with warmth and cheer, with gaiety and brightness.

I was well gay for Phil, and a good part gay without Phil as well because that was a thing I couldn’t change and wouldn’t if I could, but the gaiety was all on Phil’s part. Wasn’t I witty at three am? No. But there were more important things to be.

I was happy, certainly.

Happy like a small smile, like a candle lighting up only one little corner of a table, happy like a text message I’d been waiting for, happy like a hug. Calm, quiet happiness. Not yet happy like uncontrollable fits of laughter, like bonfires, like a kiss from a person I was in love with. Not extravagant, ecstatic happiness.

I was happy. The air was soft around us as we raced, and as we began to talk sometime around four am, bantering like we did when we played video games, and when morning rose, when London woke up although the sky, of course, was still dark at six am, so dark a blue that it looked black on first, second and third glance, I felt at ease. I felt like I could manage this day. Not only survive it, but also get through it whole, without any more losses.

I wasn’t an optimistic person. So could this be true? Were things alright?

Troye got up at half past six and had toast for breakfast. Even though his mind was rather absent, and even though he had them with Vegemite of all things disgusting, the thought of food had my stomach grumbling.

“Hey,” I said, just as we’d finished another race, and Phil was lazily scrolling through the options, trying to choose the next one. We’d gone through all of our unspoken favourites three times by then, without exaggeration. The familiarity of it didn’t bore me, not this time. Maybe familiar could be nice after all. Could be comforting, if there had ever been any comfort in the memories clinging to it. “Wanna get some food, maybe?”

Phil yawned. He rubbed his eyes, blinked. He was the embodiment of soft. Only strong people dared to be soft. I hadn’t realized that before, although it appeared so painstakingly obvious now. Bitterness, in most cases, was an acquired mask behind which the weakness hid, the overwhelming fear and dread. There was strength to the seemingly weak, and weakness to the seemingly strong.

If I could be vulnerable, could make myself vulnerable, did that mean I was getting stronger, stable for once in my life? Hell, it probably just meant I was in love with Phil in this case. But a boy could dream.

“Food?” he repeated slowly.

I didn’t say anything, waiting for him to properly wake up. My stomach made a noise again, audible this time even over the Mario Kart music in the background.

“That is a good idea,” Phil finally said. “I know a place I’d like to go. You up for that?”

He paused. In fact, he paused for such a long moment that I thought my feeling had betrayed me and he might have been finished with his question after all. There was a gap behind the audible question mark though, one that longed to be filled before I could dare to open my mouth.

“I promise it’s not in the most central part of London. You know. There won’t be lots of people around.”

Oh.

“Sure,” I said. I paused, too. I knew what I wanted to say; it wasn’t that I had to look for words. I just wasn’t sure if the words I had thought of were meant to be said. “Thank you for thinking about… you know, that.”

He merely smiled.

 

It turned out the café was far enough away to make all possible tension dissolve in huffs, in visible clouds of breath and in aching legs that long hadn’t been used this much in a long time. London was half-asleep still, even with people hurrying in the streets. It was the atmosphere that wouldn’t wake up, dragging everything to slow down, to melt together. It was too soft to lift drowsy eyelids, too gentle to shake people out of their dreams even as they were hurrying along to get to work, or other place they had to rush to.

Phil and I didn’t talk. Our shoulders bumped, occasionally, when there were too many sleepwalkers on the sidewalk, pushing us together. We merged and separated easily, like there had never been a wall between us, or an electrical fence to get hurt on. Of course, my shoulders bumped into random people’s shoulders, too, but that was different. That made me want to shy away from them, move closer to Phil. Bumping into Phil made me want to hug him, more, to be close to him and to be warmed all through until the last bit of cold had vanished even from my fingertips.Those always got cold the easiest, after all.

They were cold, objectively, when we reached the small café. I wouldn’t have spotted it, hadn’t it been for Phil; its entrance was nondescript, merely a small sign that might as well have read ‘lawyer’ or ‘yoga classes and lessons in spirituality’ pointing out what to find behind the pastel pink door. My fingertips didn’t feel cold.

Phil raised an eyebrow at me, a gesture so small it was barely noticeable. I listened. And nodded. The noise was manageable here. It grew more manageable as Phil pushed open the door and walked inside.

It had never occurred to me how much easier things might turn out after telling someone. How much more at ease I would feel. Maybe this was simply due to Phil being bloody perfect again, but I minded neither the white noise nor the actual voices passing by in my head, now that Phil had checked if I was alright. My heart warmed. His goodness was no spear to my chest anymore, left behind no stab wounds. It was more like a hot water bottle wrapped in a fuzzy blanket.

Fuzzy. Everything was fuzzy in all the best ways, dipped in pastel colours, painted in them with a soft brush.

A blond girl greeted us with a big smile. There were no other customers; the shop was small, all tables were low and cosy in some corner or another. Mismatched armchairs were grouped around them. Bookshelves lined the walls, and artistically scattered across the seemingly endless space stood shelves filled with miscellaneous things that were amazingly different and fit together perfectly all the same. The shop was small and big at the same time. I averted my eyes after a moment. Fuzzy. The girl’s cardigan, was, too, a fuzzy white. It looked like something I wanted to submerge myself in to be blind to the world. It looked like the clouds I was both longing for and trying to free myself of.

“Good morning! Choose any seat, what can I get the two of you?”

I decided on a hot chocolate, Phil picked a latte macchiato; we piled a stack of various pastries on that order in silent agreement, them we chose a small table in a far away corner. I picked it; an assortment of succulents sitting on it made Phil’s eyes light up. The easy, uncaring delight didn’t stay on his face for long, although I could have stared at him forever and been happy.

“So,” he said. He took a deep breath. I followed instinctively, breathing with him. My head cleared. The fuzziness had been nicer. I wanted it to come back. But it was a little like being just the right amount of drunk. Fuzzy couldn’t last. I didn’t want to spend my life in some kind of dystopian movie where all people were happy on drugs given to them by the government. No, thanks. Fuck. I was fucking scared. “We need to talk, obviously. I hadn’t meant to use that phrase exactly. Sorry. I’m nervous. Are you? I really- for my part. I’d like us to be honest with each other. The both us. And, just, I want this- us- I don’t know. Let’s just talk before we get to that. I definitely don’t hate you, though. I mean. Just in case. You might have been thinking that. I don’t know. That was probably already obvious, wasn’t it? Can I ask you some questions?”

“Anything,” I said. I didn’t trust my tongue with the formulation of any words beyond that, so I left it there.

The girl, Sophie, as her name tag read, brought our hot beverages to our table before Phil could actually ask any questions. I curled my hands around the cup, and waited patiently for him to organize his thoughts. I might not have been able to hear them, but I could see the workings of his brain as I kept my own gaze fixed on his eyes and tried not to think.

“Is the world really such a dark place for you?”

This was what achieved it. My mind blanked.

Then, the thoughts came flooding in. My own thoughts, mainly. They were loud and stormy and overwhelming and all of them were Phil. I didn’t know how to react to that. How the hell was he concerned, concerned for  me, after all the lies I had told him? After all the awful things I had done to him? How was this possibly the most important question, the one that first popped into his mind? How? How the actual fuck?

“Dan?”

“Sorry,” I breathed. And then just decided to be honest. Unedited. “I don’t really know what to reply to that. I don’t even - do you realize how perfect you are, Phil Lester? But, to actually answer your question, yes. It is. Less when I am with you, but people have bad thoughts all the time. I have bad thoughts all the time. It hurts to listen to them sometimes. Or always does. And I can’t shut it off.”

Phil blushed slightly. The tinge on his cheek, soft pastel pink, might have been due to the coffee in his hands, might have been due to the warmth in here, but his name had felt good, had felt right in my mouth in a soft voice, and so I wondered if maybe he had heard what had felt so clear to me. My own cheeks were most likely bright red.

“That sounds awful, Dan,” he said. I shrugged. He continued: “So can you hear my thoughts right now?”

“It only works when you’re not thinking about me.” This one was easy to answer. “I can’t hear thoughts about me, directly or indirectly. That’s why I turned up the music so much, do you remember? I would turn it up and put earplugs in - and then one time, while it was blasting and hurting my ears you started thinking about geese of all things. That was probably when it got through to me for the first time that you were really special, not just a child accidentally put into some adult’s body.”

“Oh,” Phil said. He took another deep breath. I tried hard not to go along with it this time, which resulted in me holding my own breath until he asked his next question. I sipped at my hot chocolate just to have something to do. My hunger had been banished from my stomach for now. The pastries sat untouched on the table although the both of us had been starving.

“How long? How long have you had to hear all those thoughts?” Another easy question.

“As far as I can think back.” Another quickfire answer.

“Did you plan to tell me?” My hands twisted in my lap, twisted, twisted, until there was no natural way for my fingers to curl and bend anymore, and I went with the truth, albeit the shortened version.

“Yes.” Phil’s fingers twisted in his lap, twisted, twisted. They were paler than mine, skinnier, and there were more ways for them to twist, there was a longer pause between words this time.

“Did you want to tell me?” He asked quickly, fast like he had had to assemble courage for this. But this one was the easier one to answer of the two.

“Fuck, Phil. Yes. There was nothing I wanted more. I was so terrified. I didn’t want to ruin anything between us. I’ve never- I couldn’t lose you. And then I realized I wasn’t losing you by telling you. I was losing you because I wasn’t telling you. So. Yeah. But I wanted to. I just- I’ve never outright told anyone.”

More tension dissolved. More question scrambled to the front. I was being interrogated, and rightfully so. Despite knowing that Phil deserved those answers, and knowing that I wanted to give them, wanted to finally let it all out, I was mentally perched on the edge of my seat, even when physically I was slouched in the armchair, and I was hyperaware of every move my body made, every tensing muscle.

“Does someone know?”

“Only Louise. And that’s because Darcy can do it, too.”

“Oh,” he said. Pity? Realization? Just another puzzle piece discovered? Relief? I couldn’t tell. Oh wasn’t a question I could reply to or not reply to. The sound hung in the air, the meaning behind it inscrutable to me.

“Mhm.”

“Are there others?”

“None that I know of.” I wished I knew more. But how would I find out?

“Oh.” Phil furrowed his eyebrows slightly. His fingers twitched like he had just thought of something, like something had just come to make sense somewhere in the inner windings of his mind. “Did you hear Jack’s thoughts?”

“Jack being orange-haired dickhead? Yes. I’ve wanted to kill a fair few disgusting people in my life, but he was the worst. His hate was directed at you. And I didn’t do anything.”

“You couldn’t have,” Phil said, and of course he would say that. I knew the facts to be different.

“I could have beat him up before he hurt you, not after.” I hadn’t meant my voice to sound so horribly choked.

“You beat him up?”

I waved my knuckles at him, bandaged still, and he sucked in a sharp breath. There was silence, then. My hot chocolate was empty. I still wasn’t hungry, or maybe I was, but I was too nauseated to notice.

“So you knew? The truth? And you didn’t pester me about lying? I lied to you.” Phil’s eyes were wide, trusting and open and I couldn’t believe he could be so good to me when I had founded our friendship on an intricate net of lies and unspoken words and confessions never made.

“Would have been hypocritical, no? I wasn’t entitled to know if you didn’t want to tell me.” I was well aware that with this, I was basically quoting Phil’s own words right back at him, but I was also well aware of the full stretch of their truth by now, and I couldn’t shake just how much, how much I wished I had known this sooner, and I had gone by this sooner instead of always knowing, always hating myself for it, and never realising the bigger implications. I had known about privacy. I had just never thought that while I couldn’t help snooping, I could help my attitude to it. I watched the gears rattle in Phil’s head, watched calm settle in his fingertips. They hadn’t technically been moving before, but there was a difference now. I had no words for it, not even in thought.

“I wish you could have trusted me sooner.”

“I know. I was stupid, and a fucking coward.” I hadn’t meant to swear, still not, but here the words were and I believed them to be true. I had been stupid, thinking that Phil’s reaction to honesty could have ever been bad.

“Dan. Let me finish. I wish you could have trusted me sooner, but trust is not something you can expect to be given. Trust is deserved, always deserved in some way, but as far as I know there are no universal guidelines or anything of the kind about it. Everyone trusts in different ways. And that’s okay. I’m sorry you had to go through all of that, though. I’m sorry you had to go through it by yourself.”

This was the final straw, the final drop of water in an overflowing bucket. I burst into tears as it all suddenly caught up to me, all the repressed and the not-so-repressed feelings, all the uncertain and all the certain in my life. It was the ugly kind of crying, full-on tears streaming down my face and snot in my nose, and sobs so loud that Sophie came running over. I couldn’t properly see her through curtains of tears. The bad kind of fuzzy. Or the good? Or rather blurry; the world turned blurry around me. It took me minutes to stop crying, and heaving, and in the end, I felt lighter and heavier and nothing had changed.

Sophie discreetly placed a packet of tissues and a second cup of hot chocolate on the table, muttering ‘on the house’, then disappearing as fast as she had come. I reached for the tissues. Phil reached for them.

When our hands met, he laced his fingers into mine.

“This okay?” His voice was a little rough, and evidence of the reason for it glistened on his cheek, and in his eyes. I didn’t quite trust my own voice. So I nodded simply, and tried to convey the message through my eyes. They were bright red, probably, but it seemed they still got the point across. Phil’s smile warmed.

I did have to untangle my fingers again only seconds later to blow my nose, to get myself into a state at least a little akin to order again, but then my hand found his, and stayed there. I finally reached for a pastry, the one piled on top; I couldn’t even tell what it was, but it was good. French. Any French pastry had a good likelihood of being good if well done. I was distracting myself from the things I knew I should have been saying. So I did. No more fleeing responsibilities, definitely not when it came to Phil. The filter between my brain and my mouth, the one that sadly had never quite managed the art of catching profanities, caused more harm than good when it came to me and Phil. Anything about me and Phil. Friendship. More. Whatever this was. This tentative something unfolding between us.

“I didn’t mean you pity me,” I said. “I’m just sorry. I’ve been working on my issues, I promise.”

“Everyone has issues,” Phil said solemnly. This serious tone was only a little diminished by the fact that he had said those words around a mouthful of some pastry or another he himself had picked up from the pile. I wasn’t too focused on the pastry. Rather, I was focused on the mouth. I couldn’t help it. Phil had nice lips, and knowing what they felt like didn’t make this easier. Not at all. I swallowed a little harder than my own food required. Then, I took another bite because there were no words I could have said. No good ones. There was a dictionary of possible words, but they were foreign-sounding, although clearly English due to me not speaking any foreign language. I knew about five words of German, and I knew my accent to be terrible.

“You know,” Phil said finally, not with food in his mouth this time. His voice was serious specifically because I could hear him trying to keep it light. Could hear the tremor behind it. “If you think I don’t like you, you’re so mistaken. I want to swear, so mistaken. I won’t, but. Just so you know it. It wasn’t - it is not like - I didn’t need space because of something like that. I would have told you straight away if that was the case.”

My heart skipped a beat, two, three, and then it tried to make up for that by pumping too much blood into my face, too fast.

“So you’re not throwing me out? Because I kissed you? There’ll still be more three am Mario Kart?” Phil was perfect, of course, and none of his previous reactions or words or his fingers still laced into mine pointed to him throwing me out, him being disgusted by the kiss; but I was an anxious wreck, and I couldn’t shake the feeling. I needed him to tell me.

“Maybe three am Mario Kart will be our always,” Phil said, smirking. “I won’t throw you out. I promise.”

He hesitated, then. Took a sip of his coffee. Again, I heard the gap, heard the absence of more words, and waited.

“There can even be three am kissing, if you’ll have me. Or kissing at any other time of the day. Provided you buy yourself some chapstick.”

I blanked for the second time this morning and it wasn’t ten am yet, probably not even close. Phil wanted to kiss me again. There were heavy implications to those words, but the good kind of heavy. Those words meant something. They weren’t a burden, they were a treasure, and I didn’t know how to react, other than smiling like a lovesick fool. There were no words. There were pictures, maybe, pictures of this feeling, but they were all new, they were all from right now.

I had never been in love before. I knew that I was now. To have this feeling reciprocated, or merely the possibility of having it reciprocated some day, was indescribable. Was a joy so great it trumped any joy I had ever felt, it elated me, it almost literally lifted me up into the air until if I had closed my eyes, I would have been sure I was floating. Phil pulling me up and grounding me at the same time with his hand in mine; that was what it felt like. Gravity didn’t shift. It just wasn’t as important anymore as it had been. Not strictly necessary. Not quite able to get me to obey.

“There’s just,” Phil said, and no, this wasn’t right, he didn’t sound as happy as I was. The disparity threw me back to the ground immediately. “I’m broken, Dan. I don’t deserve relationships.”

This was so wrong on so many levels. How could Phil be the one thinking himself undeserving? How could he look at himself and see a broken man when all I saw was an angel? I was cheesy, and I was fine with it, and I was going to change this unacceptable perception of himself Phil had. Only, when I opened my mouth, ready to say anything and everything, even I love you, to make sure Phil understood his worth, he shushed me with a finger to my lips, and his eyes were pleading for me to comply. So I did.

“There can be kissing,” he said. “But there can’t be sex. I’m asexual, Dan.”

Oh fuck. How could I have been so stupid? And so ignorant, for Phil to come to the conclusion that I wouldn’t love him, him completely, all of him, whatever that entailed? I was such an asshole. No, I had been an asshole. And also, this wasn’t about me.

I went to hug Phil, hands outstretched, arms open, just wanting to cradle him and to let him know he was alright, we were alright, he had nothing to believe himself broken for. He stiffened as both my hands were by his shoulders, his face closing a little to me, something changing although I still couldn’t piece together what it was. I immediately drew back. Oh, fuck.

“Is it okay if I hug you?” I asked, carefully, and trying to put all the meaning into those words that other like ‘that’s okay’ or ‘I love you anyways’ or ‘I’m not in this for the sex’ couldn’t properly convey because there was a dark undertone to all of them. They weren’t quite what I meant. I meant, of course, that I wasn’t in it for the sex. That I loved him still. But I didn’t love him in spite of his asexuality. I loved him the same as I had when I hadn’t known about it, because it had been part of him before like it was part of him now. And I didn’t not care about, because he cared, but in a way, it didn’t matter to me. Saying any of this, I would have dug myself a grave. This was for a later conversation. I needed to get not my thoughts, just my words in order.

So I let the question speak, and then the hug. Phil relaxed in my arms. We pulled back only after a long time, and I waited for Phil to stir, for him to signal he was fine now, he didn’t need the support anymore.

“Boyfriend?” I blurted. “Or is it like to early to label, because if you’re not comfortable, that’s totally fine, I’d just like to hug you some. And kiss you some. And take you on dates. And watch movies and anime with you, and play stupid video games, and talk about anything and everything.”

“You don’t-”

“Do you want to?”

“Well, yes, very much.”

“It’s settled. Because I want you to be. I have the strongest and most caring boyfriend in the world. And the handsomest.”

Phil laughed, at first, but then he was the one to burst into tears.

I let him cry, let him rid himself off all the accumulated tension he must have felt. Sophie brought more tissues, and Phil stopped crying after a while, and the smile he gave me was the brightest I had ever seen.

Things were good. I felt fuzzy, dizzy at the top of life’s ferris wheel, and no dark thoughts were pulling me down. None.

I would never let go of Phil’s hand ever again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> of course, phil's words do in no way represent my views of asexuality. just putting that out there to clarify in case dan's reaction wasn't enough.
> 
> i appreciated every single one of you a whole lot, and this is my present for you.  
> i hope it was your box of tissues. aaand i'll go now. i must admit i am slightly emotional after writing this. thank you for your continued support!


	16. Sixteen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is a trigger warning. or just a general warning. talk of sexual abuse, murder, kidnapping, and general psychopathy... listen, this sounds gruesome because it is, but there's happiness in there. enjoy!  
> oh, also suboptimal parents, but we've dealt with that before, right?

“Ready to meet the parents?”

Phil’s glare came dangerously close to scorching me. He was pacing in his room, our room, although I still hadn’t gotten used to that; currently, he was wearing a blue shirt with some intricate print on it, although he had changed said shirt five times in the past three minutes.

“I like this one,” I said, for the fifth time in the past three minutes. “And are you actually scared?”

The thing was that I, of fucking course, was joking. Phil had already met my parents, and, if everything went to plan, he would not do so again. I intended to see my mother’s face only when her closed eyes would stare at me from a coffin, provided I was invited to the funeral, and provided I went. Funerals were horrible events. Maybe that was a little harsh. I didn’t care. Perhaps I could be fixed, with time, but I was sure that the same could never happen to my relationship with my parents. So. I wasn’t talking about the infamous meeting the parents thing that always seemed to be such a big deal. I had never understood the hype of it, but that was beside the point; where I was actually taking Phil was to my honorary mother.

To Louise. And Darcy. And to the place of origin of all the sweets he’d been eating for a while. The sprinkle of glitter bakery. Really, there was no reason to be nervous at all. The only intimidating things about Louise were her social ineptness, still inferior to mine, and the fact that quite obviously she knew what she was doing with her life.

“Yes‽ How would I not be?” Phil’s voice was high-pitched, panicked and a little lost; there was more seriousness to it than I would have expected, and liked. I couldn’t bring myself to laugh, or to feign upset. I couldn’t bring myself to point out the fact that I was literally wearing sweatpants, and lounging on Phil’s bed. My hair was still damp from the shower, still curly and a mess. I would straighten that, yes; merely because I was leaving the house. But otherwise? Besides, Phil was ten times more beautiful than I was on one of my good days. The insecurity in his eyes, this honest, raw anxiety about the meeting, got every possible joke I could have made stuck in my throat.

Instead, I opened my arms and gestured for him to come closer.

“Give me a hug,” I demanded. Phil obliged. He flopped down on the bed and crawled up to me, immediately going pliant in my arms, and snuggling up even closer.

“You’re warm,” he mumbled into my shirt.

“And you are beautiful,” I said. “Now put on the red shirt, if you absolutely need me to decide. I want to show my beautiful boyfriend off.”

“Soon,” Phil mumbled. “I like this.”

Soon turned out to be twenty minutes and a short nap later. Phil took that nap while I simply lay there, comfortable despite a crooked position, keeping him warm. I tried to send waves of positive energy over, but that still wasn’t my speciality, really. If all I could send were physical heat waves, then that was it. Sometimes, I had realized, Phil just needed someone to hold him so that he could keep all his own positive energy in. At the very least, I was a master of staying in uncomfortable positions for hours at a time.

He did end up wearing the red shirt. I straightened my hair. Then, we were on our way through the biting London air.

The cold was a secondary sensation, unimportant in my ecstasy, the drug of choice being love; it was Saturday, three days after me and Phil had finally gotten our shit together, and a hurricane destroying London could not have bothered me. It was like constantly being drunk. I dreaded the hangover still.

Phil had assured me a million times, and then some, had gone as far as to jokingly, fondly mock me, especially since I had shared the alcohol-analogy with him. He’d written ‘There will never be a Philhangover’ on the bathroom mirror in toothpaste. This was a term I had coined.

I had taken a picture, then acted casual, and scrubbed it away, complaining about how the toothpaste was probably harmful to the mirror.

If I felt the need to cuddle up to Phil and confess my fears again, I knew I would be accepted. My weakness would always be accepted, and Phil might even confuse it with strength. Happened to the best of people. I knew what it felt like to stand on a swaying ledge and know there were paths somewhere in the fog over there, but there were also walls, and gruesome lakes of acid, and not knowing how to jump, where to jump, where to go.

So it was cold, damp and dark, packed with people, but not yet as cheery as in December, still hasting along on their way to unpleasant jobs and human degradation the capitalistic way; Phil’s hand was in mine, and the world felt bearable. Still dark and dangerous and when bright, then blindingly so, it was, and too big for me. But if I didn’t feel I could hold it in my hand, I felt I could move myself in it, instead of being moved. If the world was an ocean, Phil was a life vest to me, a person who’d never learnt to swim. If Phil was Rose, and I was Jack, which was a crappy metaphor but I wasn’t the writer, that was Phil, then he had found room on the fucking door for me.

The real, non-metaphorical Phil squeezed my hand.

“Where do we have to go? Right or left?”

I blinked. I blinked again. Phil had brought us to a stop right at the corner of a street that I didn’t quite recognized. I hadn’t realized where we were. I hadn’t even realized I’d been walking still. But the giant neon sign on my left looked vaguely familiar.

“Uh, back, actually? It’s the street before. On the right.”

When Phil sighed, the look in his eyes was soft.

“Stay with me,” he said, or pleaded, or maybe asked. “You alright?”

“Fine,” I said quickly, because I was. The world was bearable. Being lost in my thoughts had taken me to places far worse than a wrong turn. “Really good, even. Come on. There is coffee waiting just five minutes away.”

I didn’t get my coffee as quickly as I would have liked to. I had been right about the five minute walk; it was late enough for the shop to be open, for the coffee machine to be on and ready to provide us with the sweet, sweet caffeine; I should really have been off by about a minute, or two. Seven minutes in under caffeinated hell before the relief.

I hadn’t considered Louise in my calculations.

The first word we heard upon entering the shop was screamed at the top of her lungs, and it was quite unlikely a word to be greeted with; this might or might not have been due to the fact that Louise wasn’t yet aware of our presence, and wasn’t actually greeting us. From behind the curtains, she screamed, presumably and hopefully at Darcy:

“Obama!”

Darcy, giggling gleefully and perched up on the counter in a glittery dress, shouted back: “Llama!”

She was making the best possible use of her mother being in a rush, and seemed to be enjoying it immensely. She wasn’t technically allowed to sit on the counter, see; the chair pushed up to it and her red cheeks presented a clear picture of how she had gotten up there nevertheless. I could hear Louise’s frantic thoughts stumbling over each other, about pastries and bread and  _ not enough cinnamon for heaven’s sake _ and Darcy and  _ what even is this game _ and  _ when will she realize that words normally make sense _ and  _ where is the cinnamon I know I bought it _ .

Phil appeared unfazed at the scene, but Phil, I admitted to myself, didn’t much count for anything right now. His eyes were wide as he attempted to take in all he was seeing at first. I wasn’t sure if he had heard the shouts.

“Dan!” Darcy now shouted, and the thinking stopped immediately. “Dan boyfriend!”

I suddenly remembered why I had been hesitant to bring Phil here. Something clattered to the floor behind the curtains, and then a whirlwind of purple and white and blonde emerged so fast from behind them that it took me a moment to process this flash of colours as Louise. Darcy hopped off the counter quickly, but she needn’t have hurried. My immediate two steps back were also unnecessary. The hurricane hit Phil.

“Oh my god are you finally Phil? Has Dan finally brought the infamous Phil to my bakery? Are you gracing us with your presence? Oh, I can’t believe how real he looks. Do you want coffee? Tea? Hot chocolate? Help yourself to anything you want! Oh, by the way, I’m Louise, I’m Dan’s boss. And friend, of course, friend first. Have I mentioned that you can help yourself to anything? Please do! I hear you enjoyed what Dan brought you. He talks about you so much! In case you are actually Phil.”

I was ninety-nine per cent sure that by the time these words arrived at the conscious part of my brain, they had already been subconsciously rearranged twice to make any sense. Punctuation had been added. I took two steps forward and slipped my hand into Phil’s. There was absolutely no way he was enduring this on his own.

“I. Am Phil? Hi?” Phil cleared his throat. They’re always like this, I attempted to tell him telepathically. It was a rather fruitless effort, but had I opened my mouth, I would’ve either started sobbing or laughing, and neither was a pleasant option, or, for that matter, in any way more helpful. Phil caught himself quickly. My boyfriend and his impeccable manners. “It is nice to meet you. Dan has told me a lot.”

“Coffee?” I said. No-one listened to me. Of course.

“This place is amazing!” Phil added. He was looking around again, and luckily so, because Louise was staring at him in a way that had passed bordering on creepy, and had ascended straight into full-on creepiness. “It is so beautiful, it is even nicer than I thought it was going to be! How did you get all of those lights fixed?”

“Mum, creepy,” Darcy complained. Her chair had miraculously made its way back where it belonged.

I cleared my throat. “Coffee? Hot chocolate? Something to get this cold out there away from me?”

Louise too two steps back.

“I’m so sorry for getting overexcited,” she gasped.

“Don’t worry about her, she’s just Louise,” I said, aloud this time, and repeated: “A hot beverage? Can I go make one? Can I trust you not do destroy Phil while I just go over there?”

Phil laughed, releasing my hand.

“Go, you shining knight, I can fend off the dangers by myself. Oh, I love everything you make!” This last sentence was directed at Louise, and I took it as my final clue to just vanish for the moment and let those two get acquainted. How could I have been bitter if this meant both coffee and two important people in my life getting along? “And you are Darcy, right? Your dress is so pretty.”

Make that three important people in my life getting along. I busied myself with the coffee machine, and then busied myself with the careful selection of breakfast treats, and only half listened to the conversation in the background.

This was it. The ultimate lightness of my body. I breathed easily, hearing their voices, knowing I could join them but didn’t have to; knowing there wasn’t anything I was missing out on, and that it all would feel right; walking over to Phil and handing him a cup of coffee while leaning into his side, smiling at Louise and at Darcy as they included me in their conversation about the boyfriend thing, smiling at Phil as he teased me for my helpless crush on him weeks, months ago. This was warmth around my heart and white noise irrelevant. This was how I wanted to feel for the rest of my life.

“Oh, I love him alright,” Phil said. “Things just took us a while.”

I wanted to reply, wanted to say something sappy and cute and disgusting that would have come to me easier than I liked to admit, but something else came to me first, and I pressed my mouth firmly shut, I pressed my eyes firmly shut, I leaned closer into Phil as my head was invaded and my mind turned over by the revolting thoughts of someone pushing the door open, and entering the bakery. I was hidden behind Phil, so he didn’t see me, and I kept myself hidden; my mind was revolting against the confinement of my skull, but I couldn’t bring myself to make it stop. I needed to watch the gruesome unfolding.

His thoughts were powerful, more vivid than Phil’s; they came to me not only in words, but in pictures, too, pictures so clear that for a moment, I had to hold on to Phil because my own vision was slipping away from me and I was taken someplace else, someplace I didn’t want to be at all.

Powerless. I was powerless to the man’s dark forces.

_ Hurry to get something sweet, hurry, hurry, don’t wait until she screams. Don’t wait until she screams. The girl has a mouth on her, too much a mouth. _

I saw a girl. It took all I had in me not to scream, because there she was, with her hands tied behind her back and a cloth gagging her. Her eyes were so afraid, so afraid, and from the mood of the picture I could tell that this was what got the man going, this sheer fear in her dark eyes. She couldn’t have been older than ten; a little, dark-skinned girl, and a thousand colourful clips in her unruly hair, her hair that so much defied the submission in all the rest of her. And then the picture moved; I saw her fighting, fighting his hands off her hair, winding under his grasp. Trying to scream.

I pressed into Phil, and willed it to go away, willed it to be a fantasy, a scene from a movie that had stuck with this disgusting man, but I knew it wasn’t. I swallowed hard, swallowed twice as my body threatened to give out on me.

The man was already mentally making his way back to the girl as he paid for a treat of some kind, going too fast along the confusing web of the London Underground for me to follow along and thinking about how disgusting this place was at the same time.

I caught a glimpse of him; white, shorter than me, but not short; his hair was blonde and gelled back a little like Draco Malfoy’s in the first Harry Potter film, and his voice was nasal as he spoke; his clothes were dishevelled, though, and for a moment, a brief, brief moment, I caught a glimpse of his wild eyes and a little spot of red on his tie.

Then, I moved back behind Phil and caught another picture as the man was already leaving, a flood of pictures really, a barn or something similar, looming, dark, desolate, abandoned and perfect, in the middle of a field just on the edge between nowhere and somewhere; London city lights brightening the clouds far away. I saw a desolate, abandoned, dark Underground station, two out of three ticket machines out of order, and a large graffiti spray-painted over an advertisement from years ago. I saw the gore, the horror of it, and I felt the glee that rushed through the man every time he saw it.

Then, he was gone.

I swallowed hard. I told myself I couldn’t do anything. I was powerless. I knew it. What good was it to try? What good was it to get worked up about the horror in the world, when it was a looming pile, when it was the essence of the world itself; I might have found the good, but nothing would convince me that humanity wasn’t inherently bad in a way too big, too all-encompassing and too final already for us to fight.

“Dan?”

I hummed in agreement, afraid to open my mouth. Yes, I was still here. At least I thought so. At least I could feel Phil’s body pressed up against mine, or rather mine against his, the physical reality all that prevented me from passing out.

“Dan?” Phil repeated, and now Louise came over, too, and there was something small clinging to my legs. For a moment, I panicked, and then I remembered it was Darcy, and then I panicked again, and forgot all about my own struggles to kneel on the floor, and look Darcy in the eyes. The world seemed to sway significantly less down here. Maybe I could just stay on the floor, face-down, face-up, and ignore all that was going on? First, I needed to make sure if Darcy was okay.

“Darcy, did you hear the man’s thoughts?”

She shook her head softly, with the innocence only a child could have, and then hugged me again with the compassion only a child could have, no questions asked. I wanted to cry.

“I think we’d best make our way home,” Phil said. “Hm? Dan? We can come back when you feel better?”

I remembered agreeing, and remembered releasing Darcy with the fleeting sensation once again that it was impossible to protect anyone in this world, and vaguely remembered being hugged by Louise and showered in treats, and vaguely remembered Louise hugging Phil, too, as he never let go of my hand. I vaguely remembered Phil leading me home through the cold. I couldn’t figure out why I was shaking, from the cold, the horror, or the combination of both, but I was shaking so violently that I tripped multiple times, and never fell only thanks to Phil.

“We’ll be there in just a moment,” Phil muttered to me as yet again, he had to hold me and press my arms to my sides so that I wouldn’t shake uncontrollably. “Only up the stairs now, see. This is our building. You’re doing great, Dan. I’m proud of you.”

I took two deep breaths, the pain in my lungs reminding me yet again that reality existed in some way or another, that the cold and Phil and the ground under my feet were real, realer than thoughts; but if perception twisted everything, then how weren’t thoughts the realest thing of all? I breathed, and let the air hurt me just enough to forget for a moment anything else was real but the cold, just a brief moment to regain my strength.

I focused on the sounds of the cars and on the sound of Phil breathing, the sound of the keys as Phil fiddled with them, the sound of music coming from somewhere in the building, and I blocked out all the regular and mundane thoughts about meals and cheating partners and assignments due.

By the time we got to the top of the stairs, I thought I could speak again, I thought I could be fine again and I thought I could stick to my principle that I couldn’t do anything. I was powerless. I was never going to be enough.

In a way, I was in the perfect mindset for the next storm that was about to hit so unexpectedly it tore all my defences down with just a glare before I had caught my breath, before I had processed what was happening.

My parents stood between us and our door.

Oh, fuck.

Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck. The fucking irony.

I couldn’t deal with them ever, but I certainly couldn’t deal with them right now.

“Daniel,” my mother said.

“Good morning,” my father said. “We’re surprised to see you outside.”

I was a breath away from puking.

“If you lay just a finger on him, I will not hesitate to call the police,” Phil said firmly, very firmly. I tightened my grasp around his hand. Don’t let me go. Don’t let me go. Please, I can’t be strong right now. Mindreading didn’t enable telepathic skills, but Phil understood, or just knew what to do.

“Fag,” my father spat. My mother took a step towards me. There was so much space between them, so little space between me and Phil, an infinitesimal amount that still seemed to let so much cold seep into my body. “Don’t tell us how to treat our son.”

“I happen to love your son,” Phil said. “I don’t think you can honestly claim as much.”

My mother gasped. My father looked appalled, more disgusted now than angry, and I felt a certain kind of bitter satisfaction in this moment as my last roots were torn from the Earth, as I lost my last grounding and fell right into Phil. It didn’t feel like falling. It felt like flying. Having no roots was phenomenal when secured in someone’s arms. Or holding someone’s hands.

“I-”

“Oh, don’t lie,” I scoffed, surprised to find my voice again. Spite was a powerful motivator, so powerful it held my stomach’s meagre contents right where they belonged and instead allowed my lungs to properly function again. Spite, and the realization that I did not need my parents. I only needed one thing from them - for them to go. I told them as much.

My mother took another step towards me. Phil stepped in front of me.

My father had run out of insults.

“We will not allow-”

“Father,” I said. Draco Malfoy? Yes, but a later one. Like Eighth Year Draco Malfoy. Suck it, father. “I am nineteen. I don’t need your permission. I am not using your money.”

Months of suffering had paid off. I had known why I was being a spoilt middle class brat and denying all the opportunities given to me to have sufficient funds to, like, not be hungry all the time, and now I knew it again. I was dependent, dependent on people and love and affection and physical closeness and I wasn’t at all the independent young man I had always dreamed to become, sure of myself and stable and knowing where I was going in my life; but I was independent from my parents. At least I was independent from these two people I didn’t feel an ounce of love towards.

“I don’t need you at all,” I added. “Do you hear? This is mine and Phil’s flat, and you have no permission to enter! I will ask you to go now.”

“You have always been nothing but a disappointment to your mother and I,” my father said.

“Good,” I said, trying my best to keep my voice calm and failing only mildly. “I wouldn’t want to be anything else to you.”

I kept the insults in my mouth, on the tip of my tongue, that I wanted to throw at them. They might have been laden with enough intention to kill. To curse. Children should never have to be the bigger people when faced with their parents. Never, under any circumstance. They should be raised to meet their parents on equal footing; they might educate them in a way, from a more modern point of view, about equality and lgbt+ rights and the usage of mobile phones and computers; but they should not have to be the bigger people in a fight.

Then, my father reached out to slap Phil harshly across the face.

It looked like I wasn’t going to be the bigger person today.

I threw my curse words at him, and hoped he’d die, and hoped he’d perish under the burden of them. This hope was most likely futile, so I jumped forward, never letting go of Phil, and struck him right back. I didn’t feel the pain in my fist that must have been there, because I still couldn’t throw a punch, and because my knuckles still hadn’t completely healed from the incident with orange-haired dickhead, but I saw the pain in my father’s eyes. For good measure, I spat curses at my mother, too.

I didn’t strike her, not because she was a woman or anything, but because she wasn’t the one who had struck Phil. Both of their jaws were set, their eyes cold. They couldn’t freeze me in my rage, and they couldn’t, had never been able to soothe my agony.

Deadly silence befell the hallway.

“Leave,” I said. “Please. I don’t want you in my life anymore. Phil has given me more love than you ever could in the few months that we know each other, and I love him more than I have ever loved you. I will not be made ashamed of the way I choose to live my life.”

“Don’t come running back,” my mother said.

“Wouldn’t dream of it.” I could smile with a sickly certainty now.

“It wasn’t particularly nice to make your acquaintance,” Phil said.

My father make a weird choking noise, a sound of suffocated anger that wanted out, but couldn’t be put into words. I took the keys from Phil’s hand, unlocked the door, walked in and closed it behind the two of us without ever looking back.

Phil locked the door twice.

I sank to the ground, finally allowing my knees to give up.

Things were final now. Final in ending and final in beginning. Finality had never felt this freeing.

“Hug?” Phil asked cautiously from above. I nodded, but didn’t quite feel strong enough to stand up; it seemed like such a long way from the ground. Phil crouched next to me, and hugged me.

“How’s your face?” I muttered. “Now you’ve gotten hurt twice because of me.”

“It’s been worse,” he said lightly. “Honestly. I’ll survive.”

“Put some ice on it.”

“If you insist, worry-wart.” He chuckled.

“Care about you.”

“I care about you, too. Which is why we’re getting up from this cold floor now and sitting on the couch, and then you’ll take some time to process things, sound good?”

I merely nodded again. He pulled me up this time. It was very high. Very unstable up here. So much room to fall over. I clung to Phil until we reached the living room, until I could flop down on the couch. Wordlessly, he handed me my phone and lightly linked his leg with mine.

As it was natural when trying to distract oneself from all the actual problems of life by the means of aesthetic pictures and other people’s miserable existences, I went on tumblr.

Picture of some pretentious quote in front of some massively photoshopped massive mountain.

Picture of some pretentious quotes in neon lights.

Picture of some black and white scenery without a pretentious quote.

Picture of the girl. I blinked. It was still there, she was still there, smiling up at me from the phone screen, still small, but happy, so happy, with a thousand colourful clips in her hair.

Missing, the caption says. Suspected to be in the hands of a serial killer that has been kidnapping, raping and murdering small children from the area. Previous victims, all black little girls, have been returned to their parents in a box, all mutilated and cut up and- My blood began to boil. Bile rose in my throat.

I sprinted to the bathroom, phone still in hand, phone still showing the picture of this happy girl, and my mind showing me the picture of her, scared, scared for her life, and my mind supplement a chant of: You are powerless. You are powerless.

Shit shit shit shit shit.

This couldn’t be happening.


	17. Seventeen

My stomach was empty as I slid down to the bathroom floor, and so was my battery, physically, emotionally. This would have been a game-over in a videogame, or at least the loss of one life. Luckily, humans were more resilient than super Mario characters. Barely so, but still. My throat was sore to the point it might be bleeding. It felt like a raw, open wound that someone had poured a gallon of salt into. My entire face hurt.

I really was pathetic. This wasn’t happening to me. I wasn’t getting murdered. I was helpless in a way so different that I didn’t even dare compare those two kinds of powerlessness. I was about as entitled to having a breakdown as, like, an FBI agent on a difficult case. No, I fucking wasn’t. They, at least, were trying their best to help. Here I was, not doing anything but emptying the contents of my stomach into a toilet. And I had given up a while ago.

I wasn’t entitled to puking my guts out like this. I wasn’t the one getting tortured.

Phil flushed the toilet for me, and then silently crouched down, my toothbrush in hand.

I took it carefully. My fingers were shaking.

He didn’t say a word for the minute it took me to scrub the taste of vomit of my teeth, and helped me up from the floor with no questions asked. I didn’t really dare meet his eyes, but he was radiating concern. I was feverish, and freezing, a boiling block of ice waiting to implode. I washed my mouth out. The world was fuzzy at the edges. This was the bad kind of fuzzy; the kind of fuzzy that made my hands shake uncontrollably, my heart beat uncontrollably. It was the kind that made my most basic brain functions stutter, stop, restart in a pattern all wrong, all out of sync. I needed to sit down again. I reached for Phil’s arm. My throat burned, burned, burned.

“Dan?” Finally, Phil asked, hesitant still, what was going on, what had happened. Was I okay? I didn’t, was I? Physically, I was, emotionally, not so much. I had been quite okay. But serial killers sometimes took a bit of a toll on me.

It hit me, then. I didn’t have to keep this one in. Phil knew. Phil wouldn’t freak out, hadn’t freaked out, was perfect in every way. I didn’t have to deal with this one alone. I wasn’t alone anymore and getting thrown right and left in a storm I had no control about, with nothing to hold on to, because I had someone to hold on to now. And Phil would support me. Would give me strength. Would help me through, and ground me.

So I told him, as soon as we were in the living room, as soon as I had sit down and wasn’t feeling like the world was going to collapse in me.

I spared him the gruesome details; but the tumblr picture was enough, along with a half-choked description of the man. Phil had seen him, after all. Had seen my reaction. Had no reason to believe I would lie to him.

“There’s a barn somewhere on the edge of London,” I added. “I have no fucking clue where it is, but it’s near some Underground station with gore graffiti sprayed all over an ancient advertisement. Like. Pretty sure this- this sick- he takes public transport to go torture is victims. Sorry.”

“Um,” Phil said. “Okay, first of all, calm down. Don’t faint on me. I’ll help you. We’ll do something about this.”

“We can’t,” I said. “I don’t want to get experimented on, or, or dissected, or killed by some kind of lobbyist who’s afraid of his thoughts being read. Or a serial killer. Because, you know. I hate being alive most of the time. Not at the moment, not with you - you get what I mean, don’t you? It’s hard, being alive. But that doesn’t exactly mean I want to die. And even less that I want to be killed.”

“Yeah,” Phil said simply. “Yeah, I get that. But Dan-”

“I want to help,” I interrupted. “I might be heartless, but I want to help, it’s not like I don’t care! I’ve tried before, I’ve given anonymous tips, they haven’t taken me seriously, they- it’s no use. I’m powerless.”

“Dan, you’re not heartless,” Phil said, and now he sounded choked. The next thing I knew was he was hugging me so tightly I had to gasp for air. “You’re not heartless. I love you, you’re amazing, and you are not powerless. We can do something about this. We can go to the police. They can’t force you to disclose information about yourself that you don’t-”

“They’ll treat me like a suspect.”

There was a pause, heavy and loaded and I could feel Phil thinking.

“I’ll go instead of you.”

“No!” I exclaimed, so loudly that my throat started hurting again. My voice was too weak to properly convey the panic I felt when thinking about Phil in a holding cell, Phil being questioned in a secluded room. I’d seen too many movies and I knew it. Too many of them were American on top of it. The UK might have been royally screwed, no offense to the royal family here, but the US were systematically screwed. Or something like that. Authorities were, according to my limit movie knowledge, only seldomly to be trusted. I knew part of my fear had to be irrational. But I didn’t know which part, and could I take the risk? I certainly couldn’t let Phil take the risk for me. “No! I’m not letting them treat you like a suspect because I am too cowardly to talk to some police officer!”

“Not,” Phil started, then interrupted himself. “Listen, I think my mum knows this one police officer, and maybe he could…. Maybe if you tell someone the whole truth who promises not to tell, and who can be a credible source and not look like a troll, maybe that would help? I can call her.”

“Oh,” I said. My phone flashed with a text from Louise. My mind flashed with an idea so impossible that I wanted to try it, so small a chance that it didn’t manage to scare me yet. “Oh. No, don’t call your mum. I mean, call her if you want to, but I think I might know a police officer, too. I think he’s decent. I just- will you help me find him?”

“Anything,” Phil said. “Just tell me what I can do.”

When I texted Louise back, I didn’t reply to her question asking if I was okay; instead, I just said: If Zoe and Alfie come in, don’t let them leave until I get there.

In retrospect, it sounded creepy. In retrospect, I could have worded my request better. In retrospect, Louise knew about the mindreading, Louise had a daughter who read minds, and I could have easily told her in a sentence and a half why exactly she had to detain customers at her bakery. In the spur of the moment, I did none of that.

The November air was still biting, cold in my mouth that tasted like menthol and a little like Phil, and my lungs ached as we raced to the bakery, as we hurried to get the only place we could reasonably assume to find Alfie at on a Saturday. It was Saturday, and London was alive with people in warm coats and hats, people thinking about the grey and people thinking about the light they had at home, and people thinking about places they’d rather be right now, and people thinking bad things about other people who were probably thinking bad things about them. London wasn’t alive with fear of a serial killer, not yet. Not quite. London was alive, but there weren’t enough people in these ugly, grey streets for me to stumble across the girl’s face in the maze of my mind again.

 

Louise was pacing in the bakery, and must have been thinking about me already before she spotted me and Phil through the window. I couldn’t hear her thoughts. Darcy was on the counter.

“Hey,” I said, as Phil waved awkwardly with his left hand, his right hand holding mine.

“What is going on?” Louise asked without a greeting. I gestured to Darcy with my eyes.

“We need a trustworthy police officer,” Phil said cryptically.

“What have you done?” Louise asked. Her appearance was immaculate; purple, dotted dress clean and crisp-looking in the warm lights, and she wore an equally clean white apron. It was her face that was in a state of disarray, of confusion.

“Nothing,” I said. “I just- listen, I got hold of some ugly information. Via mindreading. And I need them to believe me-”

I watched as realization dawned on her, as her facial features rearranged themselves, forming an image of compassion, of relief. She had to be thinking about Darcy. She had to be remembering that her daughter hadn’t heard anything of what had made me go pale.

“I’ll message you immediately if they come here,” she promised. “I’ll lock them in if necessary.”

“Don’t do anything illegal.” My plea didn’t lessen the grim, determined expression on her face. Her smile was painted on when a customer came in, a girl probably younger than me, who’d been thinking about panda bears until she became aware of my presence, and who probably continued thinking about them after, when I couldn’t hear it anymore. Darcy, who had hopped off the counter at lightening speed, came running towards us, attaching herself to my legs. I took a deep breath.

“We need to check the smoothie shop next door,” I told Phil quietly. “That’s where Alfie goes. Hey, Darcy. Be nice to your mum, will you? And careful?”

“I’m always nice,” Darcy insisted, sticking her tongue out at me. For emphasis, Phil stuck his tongue out at me as well, then pecked me on the lips. No time for kissing. He drew away.

“I don’t know if him being a health nut makes him trustworthy to me, but okay. Let’s go.”

Not really that surprisingly, Alfie wasn’t at the smoothie shop, either. Neither was he somewhere in the streets just waiting for us to run into him. Well, at least it had been proven that my life wasn’t a movie or book quite yet. Things didn’t come easy, didn’t go smoothly; things also didn’t include trials the size of Mount Everest. I just didn’t realize how stupid I was being sometimes.

The idea came to Phil as we were shivering in the cold, waiting for something to happen that wouldn’t at a chance of ninetynine point nine percent, or something, I hated Statistics, and I hated being powerless and I hated not knowing what to do and I hated everything being uncertain.

“There can’t be that many police stations in the area,” Phil said. His breath formed a cloud in the air, and for a moment, I was too mesmerized to register the contents of his words. He’d pressed on before I could reply. “And there can’t be that many people called Alfie, can there?”

“You,” I said. I hated my brain not working properly, I hated being caught up in patterns years old, I hated being locked up in a prison that was but my mind, but my ingrained thoughts and fears and anxieties, just hated not being enough. I wasn’t ever going to be enough if I couldn’t escape, I needed to escape, but I was still at the bottom of the well. In this stupid, stupid metaphor, because stupid, stupid metaphors were all my brain came up with, Phil had thrown a walkie-talkie right down to me. It was all connection I had to logic, to semblance of a comprehensible reality. “You are smart.”

“Should I look up police stations on Google Maps, then?”

I just nodded, this time. I tried to banish the hate welling up inside me. Tried to let go of it. It wouldn’t evaporate, stayed choking me, but choking me meant cutting my line of communication. So I focused on Phil. Focused on the love I felt. Focused on how he loved me. How his eyes got all soft when he looked at me, how he had promised to stay, how he never let go first when hugging me. I focused on Phil. Part of me warmed. I climbed up one step against the wall of the well. One step at the time, because up there, the world was still racing, and all I could do was keep up communication, was keep myself steady in this mess.

“There’s one, five minutes of walking from here. Are you up for it?”

I nodded again.

“Sure?” Phil’s eyes were soft now, soft and worried and yes, I would have rather been hiding under a blanket, I would have rather been not hating myself, but those two things I wanted sadly wouldn’t go together, not right now.

“Yes,” I said. “Sure. Thank you for asking, though. Thank you for being here with me.”

“Where else would I be?” Phil asked.

I could have named a million places, and a million reasons why they were better than specifically here, and more specifically here with me, but the air was cold and biting, and I kept my mouth shut.

Alfie didn’t work at that police station. At least, if he did, they wouldn’t tell us; wouldn’t tell us if anyone named Alfie, nick-named Alfie probably worked here, or Alfred; claimed or feigned ignorance when we described him.

We walked twenty minutes to the next one, and it should have been a thirty-minute walk. I was getting light-headed, barely feeling the exercise, barely feeling the burning in my lungs. My stomach twisted, every now and again. I flinched away from every blonde, white man we saw, but none of them where the killer, the kidnapper, on second glance.

“Dan,” Phil said. “Are you sure-”

“Yes,” I interrupted, too lightheaded to hold a discussion. I had Phil to hold on to, and a mission to pursue, and a chance to, for once, do good. Do something. It was a small and remote and near-impossible chance, but I didn’t want to give up until it had evaporated, until I could crawl under the covers and let Phil hold me and only feel as bad about myself and the world as I felt on any normal day, and better, because Phil would be there and he’d be warming me despite his perpetually cold skin.

“Okay. But tell me if it gets too much, yeah? I care about you, and your own boundaries are what counts. You didn’t choose to read minds. It would be great if you could help, but if you can’t, it won’t make me think any less of you. Got that?”

“I love you,” was all I said for lack of a better response, for lack of words that didn’t sound so empty and so cliché next to Phil’s well-spoken sentences, well thought-out paragraphs, and it didn’t manage to convey what I really felt because love was an empty word as much as it was loaded. I just hoped that the cargo it carried got through to Phil, not lost on the way. I wasn’t good with words. I wasn’t good with many things at all. Or good, in general. But I could be? Maybe? Maybe I could be. Not with words, though. But if things went well, I’d have Phil to be good with words for me for quite a while still.

At the next police station, we talked to an intern who looked majorly stressed out and even more constipated. It was a mighty, explosive mixture.

“Does someone who goes by Alfie, or Alfred, work here?” Phil asked, and then nudged me so that I could give a description of his appearance in my own clumsy words. The intern hesitated. It was enough to know that Alfie did work here. My stomach twisted. I couldn’t tell if the feeling was good or bad, or if it was just there, just to make me uncomfortable. Life had a knack at that.

“Please,” Phil said. “He’s a friend, we need to talk to him.”

The intern fidgeted. I related to him a little too much, considering he looked like he went to the gym six days a week and like his diet plan contained actual cheat days. Clearly though, he didn’t know shit about what he was doing, either. In fact, the entire police station seemed to be in a frenzy, people running around in different kinds of uniforms looking official and angry and stressed out and I heard their thoughts, and most of their thoughts were centered around the little girl, and about being clueless, about not having any leads. This was what settled it. I had to talk to Alfie. I stepped up, and braced myself.

“Something happened. With his girlfriend. Don’t tell him, though. Just fetch him. We will handle it, and you’ll have him back, soon.”

Because I could do this just fine. I could lie. The guilt eating away at me only got to those parts that were lit up by Phil. It only got to those parts where it hurt most. And this lie had been innocent, justifiable by the goal of it. The intern hurried away, nodding even as he turned around a corner.

“Sorry,” I muttered.

“You’ve got nothing to be sorry for,” Phil assured me.

“You can’t even tell a white lie.”

“And does that make me a better person?”

I didn’t get to argue that it did. Alfie came rushing up to us as I was opening my mouth, before I had decided what exactly I was going to say. He was jogging. Oh fuck. Had I chosen the right person to confide in here?

“Hey,” he said. “Dan, right? What’s going on?”

“I have some information about the case for you,” I said. “Can we talk somewhere without anyone listening?”

“Sure,” Alfie said immediately. His eyes were big and brown and trusting, and I had chosen the right person to confide in after all. “C’mon. It’s not like we’re getting anywhere in there.”

He sat us down in some empty room or another after taking a key from a colleague who, drawing on some map and looking very focused, didn’t ask what he needed it for. Not only did Alfie trust people; people also trusted him. Which didn’t matter. I didn’t need to know about Alfie. I just needed to tell him what I knew, and then others needed to take his information as credible, and then they needed to solve the case and everything would be fine.

“The first thing you should know,” I said, “is that I read minds.”

This did get a little easier, somehow, the more often I did it. Maybe it was just the fact that I didn’t really care about Alfie that much; didn’t really care what he thought of me, anyways.

He didn’t say anything. Phil squeezed my hand, though. Phil was there, right next to me. Our two chairs might have as well been one.

“Whenever people aren’t thinking about me, or even vaguely aware of me, or the concept of a role I am currently playing to them even if they are not aware it is me, I know what they are thinking. It’s just in my head. I’m going to need you to at least partly believe me, because that’s where my information comes from.”

“I’m not sure,” Alfie said. “I do want to, mate, I just-”

“It’s true,” Phil said. “I’m vouching for him, and Louise will, too. From the bakery. I am under the impression that you have met her?”

Alfie nodded, considered. I couldn’t read his expression as well as Phil’s, but there was a change in it just before he spoke, and his shoulders straightened. Too many muscles.

“Tell me what you know,” he said. “I don’t actually have a lot of power in here yet, so you’ll have to talk to my supervisor as well, but he’s a good guy, I promise. And if what you’re saying is true, you probably don’t want it public, do you?”

I shook my head, and told the tale, told him all I knew. About the Underground station, the barn, the girl, the man. Alfie sat and nodded and seemed to believe in my story more with every second.

“I promise,” I added when I’d finished, “I promise that I’m not making this up.”

“I’ll go get Gideon,” Alfie stated, shook his head once more, nodded once more, and disappeared.

“I have a feeling we are confusing people,” Phil said.

I groaned.

“‘S not your fault, though,” he added after a few seconds of thought.

I groaned again. My head buzzed weirdly, considering we were far from the street, considering I’d thought I had the voices under control. I wished I could have Phil reading Kingdom of Oxin to me in that moment, but, alas. What one wished for wasn’t always the right thing to do, and while putting one’s own needs in front of someone else’s comparable needs was justifiable, and, in my opinion, right, putting one’s own wishes in front of someone else’s needs wasn’t. We had time. A life time. A time so long I’d never thought I want to get to experience it. So. There was plenty of quiet time, plenty of time to adhere to my personal struggles and the buzzing in my head, the dizziness.

Not right now, though. Not in this moment.

I didn’t notice the door being thrown open; only heard it crash against the wall, then heard Alfie chuckle nervously, and apologize.

A bald man sighed. This must have been the supervisor, Gideon. He didn’t look dangerous. Well, he did, wearing a uniform and all, but not dangerous in a malevolent way. He didn’t look like someone who’d harm kittens. Or boys. He looked like someone who might harm men, but I was safe in that field. I highly doubted that he would regard me as such; as an equal.

“Good afternoon, sir,” I said, nevertheless. Wouldn’t want to take risks. Phil was holding the hand I would have needed to stick out to him, and I wasn’t about to let go, so that was that. The bald man took a seat before introducing himself, but when he did, he gave me a small smile. Definitely a child in his eyes. Oh well. Alfie loomed at the corner of the table; there were no chairs left.

“You can tell him what you’ve just told me,” he said a little too brightly.

“We can promise you confidentiality,” Mr. Gideon said. “Well. I can promise you confidentiality, and I’ve seen some crazy stuff in my time so you’ll have to work hard if you’re aiming to give me a story I can’t believe. Get going, though, victims don’t save themselves normally, because they aren’t in a position to.”

So I told my tale again.

He didn’t flinch when I briefly explained the mindreading and cut myself off halfway through what I knew about it because that information suddenly seemed quite unnecessary as he was staring me down.

He didn’t flinch when I, not leaving out any minor detail this time, recounted what I knew.

He didn’t comment on the story, exactly, didn’t ask any follow-up questions, when I was finished. Phil held my hand tighter with every word. It hurt, but it was all that kept me grounded, this pain, this reminder of a physical reality that was there, and tangible, no matter how much I chose to not believe in it.

“Thank you,” he said instead, just as grimly as before. “This information will be highly valuable to us if it proves to be right. I will set a team to work immediately. Leave your number with Alfred if you haven’t already as I gather you are acquainted, so that we can contact you if the case is closed. You may head home. Only one more question.”

I nodded, and swallowed hard. My throat was completely dry, from talking, from swallowing nervously all the time, and hurting again. I wouldn’t fucking show weakness in this place though. This was the epitome of alpha-malery. Which I knew very well not to be a word.

“Would you mind if we contacted you in the future to help with suspect interrogation? Anonymously, of course. I understand that is the way it works. They won’t know you exist. I assure you.”

Oh, he was assuring me. He was assuring like a child. I couldn’t have claimed I didn’t need that treatment without lying.

“Uhm,” I said. “If it’s urgent? I guess? And if you, you know, promise confidentiality. I would like to help.”

“Good,” he said, and left without another word. So pragmatic. I wished that when I did that, it would be more this and less of a ‘what a rude guy’ kind of scenario.

“Or if we want to hang out sometime?” Alfie proposed. For a second, I didn’t know what he  was referring to. It clicked when he basically shoved his phone into my hands.

“Yeah,” I heard myself saying. “Yeah, okay.”

“Awesome,” Alfie said. “I got some less awesome work to do now I guess, hopefully save some lives, so we’ll catch up soon. I’ll let you know as soon as we got that bastard. I’m not sure if I believe you, but I sorta have to, no?”

“Deyes!” someone shouted from somewhere rather far away. Alfie flinched.

“Right, that’s my cue.”

“We’ll find our way out,” Phil assured him. I was a little too dumbfounded to say goodbye.

I hadn’t thought they would believe me, hadn’t ever seriously considered they wouldn’t take me for an absolute lunatic. Too be fair, Alfie was a child, and that Gideon guy looked like a lunatic himself and had probably dared with a fair few of them, ones that were worse than a nineteen-year-old potentially having hallucinations and hearing voices, or making up some stories. Wasn’t his problem; at least, that was my best guess as to how he had questioned me so little. He got a lead, and any lead was good if a little girl’s life was on the line.

In fact, I was a little too dumbfounded, and a little too overrun by crowds and crowds of thought, and a little too mysteriously lightheaded to even say anything until we got back to the apartment.

Phil closed the door behind us. Locked it as he always did. And looked at me so softly that I wasn’t sure if I might be missing something. I was fine, wasn’t I? Overwhelmed, yes, but accomplished, sort of. Empty, too; with no words pushing to escape me. More at peace for the same reason. I objectively wasn’t very good at taking care of myself, though.

“You did well,” he finally said after staring for a moment too long in the dimly lit hallway. “I’m proud of you. You can be proud of yourself.”

In response, my stomach growled.

As previously mentioned, I objectively wasn’t very good at taking care of myself.

This might explain the lightheadedness, the buzzing, and the lack of energy; I was hungry. To be fair, I had puked up basically all my meagre food intake of the day.

Phil laughed. “I’m sensing that a heartfelt emotional speech isn’t what you need right now?”

“I’ll take a hug,” I admitted, inching closer already as the words were on their way from my brain to my mouth to Phil to memories and nothingness. The hug was real, though. As real as it got. Nothing in my life had ever felt as substantial, real and right as my time with Phil. My stomach growled again. “And, you know. Eating is such a necessary thing. I’d forgotten.”

“Won’t let that happen, will we? Picnic?”

“I love you.”

“Love you, too.”

 

Alfie texted an hour later, as we were sitting on the carpet, eating crumpets that were perfectly buttered, and watching some mindless TV show, watching mainly for the news although we knew them to be unnecessary.

_ Hey Dan, it’s Alfie!! Found her, she’s alive, got the guy handcuffed in this very car, she’s with a colleague who’s a little less threatening than Gideon _

_ It doesn’t seem like she’s been seriously harmed yet _

_ She’ll get psychological treatment and stuff, be as fine as fine gets after an experience like that, and it’s mainly thanks to you we had no clue although he was so close _

_ So. Thanks _

_ Can’t be anything official but Gideon’s sneaking me some money over to at least take you and company out for a treat or something, Zoe will be delighted to see you, too _

_ I should probably stop spamming just wanted to let you know it’s over now, it’s all good, and like thank god we had you _

I cried. I wasn’t powerless. 

_ thank you _

I managed to text back, if ever so briefly, and then melted into Phil’s arms although my tears were happy tears this time. Relieved ones. The last baggage of this day getting ripped off my shoulders and burned, burned, burned as I cried.

Phil hugged me; he kissed the tears off my cheeks, and then kissed me, and I had gone so soft, and couldn’t bring myself to mind. Couldn’t bring myself to want to get the defenses up again. I was loved, and capable of love myself. Perhaps that was the bigger thing. I could be good in spite of my burdens. I didn’t have to succumb; and most importantly, I didn’t always have to be strong.

“Thank you,” I whispered to Phil as our lips parted, breathless and high on oxygen we were, elated, exhilarated. “I fucking love you so much you fucking angel, Phil Lester.”

Phil laughed, and kissed me again.

  
  


**THE END.**

 

(For you, that is. For me and Phil? This wasn’t the end, nor was it the beginning. It was just another moment, just somewhere in the middle. Just one peak of happiness in a mountain range. Just a minute of soft light and a minute of peace. Just a minute of conviviality, of just the two of us as one. Of love. This wasn’t the end of the story, and this wasn’t where happiness began. It was us. It was now.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (dan breaking the fourth wall here at the end)  
> so this isn't technically the end, because i still have an epilogue planned that should be uploaded at some point during the next two weeks, but, you know. as far as story goes, we have reached the end of this one.
> 
> thank you all for reading, for your kudos, and bookmarks, and especially for your sweet comments! i can't properly express my gratitude, honestly.
> 
> and if you're asking yourselves why i have gone all criminal minds on you - it's just that this story was supposed to be, and is, technically about dan, and about his mindreading. it is dan's story i told; of course, focusing on the aspect of phil being in it, but it is dan's and a slow burn fic shouldn't, in my opinion, end with a kiss. that's not where your story ends, either - life is not all about romance, and fiction shouldn't be, either. at least, that is what i am convinced of. the alternate universe dan and phil that i've been writing about for four months now may not be real, but because they aren't, we can get to know them better than most actual real life people. i hope some of you agree; because your story isn't only worth being told when there's a love interest.
> 
> thank you for reading, again! (if you're still reading this.)  
> if you can spare a moment, i would love to read about your opinions, too.


	18. Epilogue

_One Month Later  
_ Christmas with Phil’s family is a little too much and a lot just right; a little too much food, perhaps, and a little too much champagne; although Dan did think it would be a little too much being with people, a little too much being questioned, being reminded of what his own family should have been and could have been, so this, by far, is better. He will never complain about too much food prepared by Phil’s lovely mum, and he will never complain about board games with Martyn and Cornelia, or with the entire family even. He will, maybe, sometimes, sneak away to Phil’s childhood bedroom that they both share, and sink into the sheets for a moment, let himself be soothed by Phil for a moment even though Phil is downstairs with his family. And Phil won’t stay down there for long, he’ll come as soon as he notices Dan is gone, and he’ll make sure his boyfriend is alright. Which Dan is, it’s just a lot. A lot to take in.

It isn’t too much, though. And while it is a constant reminder of what he could have had and what he wishes he’d had and what would have made his life, and his acceptance of himself probably a lot easier, it is also what he can have now.

He may be a little drunk, and maybe he’s a little high on the Christmas cheer, the simple conviviality in the Lester household, but he decides to tell Phil’s family about the mindreading, which is great, genuinely great. It’s just so much easier dealing with people if he doesn’t always have to hide a major part of his identity, and they are highly aware of his presence anyways, he has heard thoughts on less occasions than he has been hugged so far, which is unfamiliar, but one of the best things to happen in his life. The best thing, or person, rather, is obviously Phil.

And they’re great about; there’s more hugs and gentle questions and he’s being praised for his bravery, which he still doesn’t think he deserves, but accepts because he’s polite, and because he wants to accept it.

He calls his parents on Christmas, and although they done pick up, he feels better afterwards. It feels like another little bit of closure. And it’s them shutting the door this time, not him; it might be a cowardly move, but Dan really doesn’t want to be blaming himself for this, too, the rest of his life.

Louise calls him five minutes later, and he takes it as a sign, despite definitely not being superstitious.

After the fifth time Martyn has jokingly asked who tops and who bottoms in their relationship, and Dan, for the fifth time, deflected the question while trying to keep the banter light, to tear the attention away from Phil, it is Phil who decides to tell Martyn he’s asexual although, he claims, his family doesn’t really have to know about their sex life at all, be it existent or non-existent. Martyn apologizes five times for making his little brother uncomfortable, so it all works out in the end.

The next few jokes he makes about their relationship all have to do with how introverted they are; who does the shopping in such a relationship? Those make all of them laugh. Phil is more at ease now, too; Dan doesn’t need to squeeze his hand to let him know he’s there when Phil tenses up, because his boyfriend doesn’t tense up anymore, but he still does, just for the fun of it, and Phil squeezes right back every time.

They sleep entangled in each other in Phil’s childhood bed, which is a little too small for two people as tall as they are. They make it work.

Christmas feels like Christmas for the first time in Dan’s life.

  


_Three Months Later  
_ They have Darcy staying over with them for a weekend as Louise deals with some personal stuff, and it’s beautiful; they go to bed at reasonable times, have an unreasonable amount of sugar, and discover their shared passion for colouring books.

Dan can’t stop watching Phil being a parent, and for the first time in his life, he considers the possibility of raising a child. Too many children live in orphanages, right? They could adopt a child, they could care for a child, at some point in the future. It is a possibility. It seems beautiful.

  


_Four Months Later  
_ At the end of March, when Dan comes home from his shift at the bakery, Phil is pacing in the living room, and won’t speak, won’t make anything other than weirdly choked noises. His eyes are bright, and the noises aren’t sad; it isn’t like he’s crying. Dan, of course, still worries, and is too impatient to wait until Phil has calmed down. Phil’s laptop is open on the table.

Dan doesn’t get to fully read the official-looking email before Phil finds his voice again.

“I got a book deal,” he squeals. “Oh, holy, I got a book deal, can you believe it? My silly little story got me a book deal.”

They celebrate with a lot of champagne and hugs and kisses and a Kingdom of Oxin special that Phil drunkenly uploads and deletes after it’s only gotten about a hundred reads. It’s probably still out there, on the Internet, but Phil has a book deal and that is all that matters.

  


_Five Months Later  
_ In April, the police figure out a way to sneakily pay Dan for when he sits in on interviews about two or three times a month, and gets them leads on their cases; it’s kind of a gruesome job, but it’s important, and it helps save people’s lives most of the time, the times they call him in for. He doesn’t particularly like that the police can just sneak away money like that, but then he suspects that Gideon always rather did his own thing than obey to the rules, and that he is the most successful in not hurting people of them all, so maybe a little corruption is okay. And it pays, and his savings account grows from working at the bakery, from occasionally working with the police. This might have been the way he was supposed to get by in life right from the start; without one bigger purpose, one thing he does that fulfills him completely and is his everything. Maybe that’s just a construct of society anyways, made up to make people miserable when they can’t find their purpose. So Dan stops looking, starts enjoying. He still questions everything, but he stops thinking that there might be something huge still waiting for him. This is what it is. And he’s content, right? He lives comfortably, although simply, and he is loved, he loves.

  


_Six Months Later  
_ When Dan gets home one evening in May, sweaty and exhausted after trying to learn how to make proper pastry, failing, and subsequently trying again because there is the attempt to not give up on things as easily as he used to, Phil is pacing again, but this time, he is on the phone with someone, talking in a voice that doesn’t quite sound like Phil, too professional, too much like he has a plan, like he knows exactly what he’s doing. And Dan knows that this is a fact. Phil, most of the time, knows what he is doing. He’s older than Dan, and more put together, and that was always true but never a problem before.

It is, now, somehow, and Dan feels himself slipping into some place he doesn’t want to go to anymore, some place dark and dangerous inside his own mind, some place spattered with ‘not good enough’. Is he good enough for Phil?

The last months have been the happiest of his life, and the most productive, constructive, when it comes to figuring himself out. He has a steady income, he tries to remind himself, and he is learning about something that he never thought he would enjoy but now does. His sleep schedule isn’t quite as messed up as it was anymore. He loves his boyfriend, and his boyfriend loves him, right?

It seems difficult to believe all of a sudden, standing here in the door frame like a mess, no, standing here a mess, and listening to Phil being all grown up and serious. He can’t even hear the words, that’s how distressed he is; can’t hear what Phil is saying, can’t make out what the conversation is about. But he feels useless, feels less, just standing here and aching to be better, to be better faster and to feel more like he knows where he is going in life. He’s slipping away from things he’s learned, things he’s come to realize, and he doesn’t know if they’ll wait for him as they move on with life; what he does know is that the abyss is waiting for him, and calling to him.

By the time Phil hangs up, Dan is crying silently, and he feels awful about because Phil is glowing with happiness, almost jumping up and down, he looks so delighted at whatever that conversation was about. The light streaming in through the window illuminates him; Dan, in the shadows, is crying. He doesn’t want to bring Phil down, really doesn’t, so here’s another reason why he isn’t good enough, right?

“Dan?” Phil’s question is tentative, hesitant. The smile is wiped off his face immediately. Dan did that. And the thoughts come easily, then. He hates himself for doing that.

“Sorry,” he says, over and over again. Apologies aren’t enough, not for him, but there’s nothing else he can do.

“No, Dan, it’s okay,” Phil insists, and hugs him, hugs him for so long that Dan dissolves in the hug, that Dan loses all of himself in the hug, until he feels better, until he feels he can tell Phil what’s going on, until he can breathe.

Phil hugs him even tighter when he has spilled, and whispers sweet nothings that mean everything in the moment.

“I love you,” he says, Dan remembers as much. “You’re always good enough.”

“I love you too,” Dan says, and then: “Fuck. What were you so happy about? I completely-”

He breaks off at that, gesturing to his tear-stained cheeks, but Phil kisses him before he can feel guilty.

“Oh,” Phil says, then, five minutes later, and slightly breathless, “they asked me to do a radio show on BBC1.”

 

_Eight Months Later  
_ In July, it has been a year since Dan moved to this house, to the flat across from the one he now lives in with Phil, where he now shares a bedroom and a kitchen and really the entire flat with the most important person in the entire world to him. In July, it has been a year since, for the first time, he heard Phil’s thoughts. In July, it has been a year, and although Phil didn’t know Dan back then, and Dan only knew a fragment of Phil, they celebrate.

They invite Louise with Darcy, they invite Troye, Martyn and Cornelia, and they have a little party in their apartment that doesn’t make Dan feel uncomfortable. Phil uses silly icebreakers to get their friends to know each other, too, and it’s easy; it’s easy when they laugh, when Troye gets his guitar out, when Phil dramatically tells a story although they’re not having a campfire on their living room floor. It’s easy when they eat, and drink, and talk all together, and Phil doesn’t let go of Dan’s hand anyways.

 

_Ten Months Later  
_ September 16th marks the first time they ever played Mario Kart together, so in order to celebrate, they do just that, and forget about the bad stuff that lead to them originally playing, a year ago. Dan cooks for them this time, and he knows how to make pastry now, knows how to bake; somehow, he has even managed over the past few months to translate some of his skill in baking to skill in cooking. What he cooks isn’t only edible, it’s good, and he shouldn’t feel this proud, but for someone who hadn’t considered he might have a future up until less than a year ago, this is a big step. This is self-sufficiency in codependence.

So they play video games and eat soup that is, actually, really good; Phil raves on about how he has a new idea for a book, and Dan gladly listens, and he feels like life is manageable, like life is good. No-one calls them on this day, and outside, the world goes its normal ways, but to them, it is special, so they make it special.

 

_One Year Later  
_ When Dan wakes up on a cold morning towards the end of November, the other side of the bed is empty, and the sheets look barely slept in, at least by Phil’s standards. It’s dark outside, and really fucking early still. Dan doesn’t remember Phil having an appointment early in the morning, and he just did his radio show yesterday. His mind is hazy from sleep as he tries to figure out what could possibly have Phil up this early in the morning. It is not seven am yet, he realizes as he checks his phone. Louise has messaged him, but for now, he’s too lazy to read whatever she wants to tell him, because he knows he wasn’t meant to come in for an early shift today.

Something falls in the kitchen, and he smiles; Phil is there, then. Maybe he just couldn’t sleep, or was hit by inspiration. It’s all happened before; Dan will get up when his limbs don’t feel like concrete anymore, he’ll go up to Phil and sleepily hug him, not kiss him because that’s just a little vile with morning breath. If he’s feeling generous, he might even brush his teeth, and then go kiss Phil, wearing boxers and a loose t-shirt and some fuzzy socks he seems to have a hidden stack of, somewhere in their cramped apartment, that Dan still hasn’t discovered.

Only Phil opens the door now, slowly, carrying a mug of something steaming, and some toast that is probably mildly charred, although Dan can’t see that in the dark.

“Good morning,” he says. “I’ve been up for like three hours and I’ve had too much sugar already, so bear with me if you can’t exactly follow my thoughts. Also, where is your passport? Here’s breakfast, have it, eat it, you’ll need your strength.”

Dan blinks.

“What?”

But Phil is already gone, having placed the breakfast on Dan’s bedside table, and doesn’t reply. Dan, in all honesty, is too tired to get up just yet, so he sips at his hot chocolate and nibbles at his toast and tries to reconcile the time of day with Phil’s statement of already having been up for three hours and having had too much sugar. It doesn’t work.

He does get up finally, but when he finds Phil in the kitchen, his boyfriend isn’t wearing his soft early morning attire, and instead already sporting jeans and a hoodie, which it is definitely too early for, and he isn’t messing with the toaster or the kettle or anything, but instead leaning over an open bag on the counter, rummaging through it.

“Hey,” Dan says, not sure what to do; he himself isn’t quite as ready for the day as Phil seems to be. His naked feet are getting cold on the floor, and he doesn’t know what this is all about. He trusts Phil, he does; it is just too early.

Phil looks up with the widest smile.

“Ready to be kidnapped?”

Dan is not, as Phil quickly realizes; so he goes in for that hug finally, and tells Dan some more details of what was supposed to be a massive surprise and turned out maybe a bit too massive. It’s been a year since their first kiss. Dan knew that, last night, and he would have known again in a few minutes; he planned to take Phil out to dinner, or rather, to order some fancy take out and just have dinner here, because it is cold and people, miraculously, still haven’t stopped thinking. Phil, as it turns out, planned something a little bigger.

They go to India. It’s beautiful, and the mess of the first morning is quickly forgotten. They barely make their plane, but they do make it; the passport is found, and everything is explained, and once Dan gets over his initial utter confusion, his all-encompassing happiness manages to vanish Phil’s guilt.

Everyone but Dan knew; Louise did, Alfie did, Troye did, and the biggest miracle is that Phil managed to keep it a secret. But he did, and Dan is happy, and he doesn’t worry in the warm sunlight.

One night, they sit on the roof of their hotel that Phil miraculously got access to, and they look at the few stars that they can see, and they plan; because they have money now, and security, and each other. They see more stars than light pollution allows them to, because they see them in each others eyes.

There’s brightness around them, and brightness in their future.

A year of _them_ has passed, a year of _officially them_ at least. And there’s more years to come. Perhaps in the next year, they’ll get a new apartment, or a house. Perhaps they’ll get a dog at some point, children; faster wi-fi, maybe. There are all those possibilities in their future. For now, a year has passed. There’s a lot of brightness behind them, too.

Flashlights in the dark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay, i rambled last chapter, so -
> 
> thank you so much for reading. thank you so much for your kudos, and especially for your kind comments. i loved writing this story.


End file.
